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Beating Up the Donkey or the Monkey?
Any poker fan knows where they have heard “donkey” before: Phil Hellmuth, “resort[ing] to one of his favorite zoological epithets, saying it’s hard to win when he’s so smart and his opponents are playing ‘donkey poker’,” a recent article on Phil stated. As much fun as Hellmuth can be to watchers and as annoying as he can be to his opponents, this is a typical case of tantrum reaction – or as a psychological source suggested, a dominant monkey behavior.
According to psychologist Steve Pavlina, “the mind is like a hyperactive monkey.” More than once in our lives, if not everyday, we are prompt by the uncontrollable urge to vent, slur or strop. Some of us choose to close up and keep quiet until it passes, others become chronic complainers, and there are few who even believe it’s not only acceptable but also appropriate to do an impression of a toddler in a supermarket after mom said, “No, Philly, no gummy bears for you this week.” However, approximately at the age of 25, most adults learn that the only two things you accomplish by displaying a tantrum are to embarrass yourself and amuse others. Of course, once some become powerful or successful enough, they go back to their old ways because they know their subordinates or fans will tolerate, condone and even reward such behavior. They become powerful toddlers.
Mentally, when humans experience a negative emotion – for example, a bad beat in poker – they react in different ways, which according to Dr. Tim Lavalli “can include attitude ([getting] angry), emotion ([stalking] away from the table talking to yourself), belief (that guy is a donkey!), [or] behavior (take it well or take it badly, it’s still behavior).” These emotions make us uncomfortable, and in order to ease that discomfort, the mind naturally starts looking for ways to settle it down. However, through cultural imitation, we have learned to dwell on the negative emotions and block our natural solution-seeking response. We grow hopeless. This makes us feel anguish and desperation and suddenly our world collapses, which pushes us to surrender to any of the reactions above mentioned. Our animal instincts resemble a monkey. If you do not get to know and control the monkey inside you, your mind will be dominated by it.
Complaining is the most socially acceptable reaction, but it is as harmful and as primitive as a tantrum: it perpetuates negativity and blocks you from brainstorming for solutions. Capitalism goes hand in hand with complaining: as consumers, we face countless situations in which almost every service we pay for makes us complain.
A universal human behavior, complaining seems like a normal way to express ourselves; even lawyers make a living out of it, but it is often confused with standing up for oneself until it becomes a constant chronic ailment and our friends and family start criticizing us by our constant bickering. So, what do we do about complaining? Is there anything to do with it?
Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kotcha-Kalleinen have actually turned the energy of complaining into a world-wide organization called Complaints Choir. Literal translation of the Finnish expression Valituskuoro, complaints choir is used to describe the phenomenon of lots of people complaining simultaneously, and when the couple caught themselves simultaneously complaining about how cold a winter day was while taking a walk, they thought: “Wouldn’t it be fantastic to take this expression literally and organize a real Complaints Choir?”
They proposed the choir project to different event organizations they worked with as artists but were not taken seriously until they talked to the people at the Springhill Institute in Birmingham, who loved the initiative, maybe because Birmingham is known as the “arsehole province of England,” as some quote. This project has already spread around the world and it is most popular in places like Hong Kong, Gothenburg and Buenos Aires, where the level of complaining is higher than in other areas. The purpose of the choirs is to liberate the frustration of usual complaints and give them a positive, humorous outlet by singing them collectively.
Thus, what happens if we don’t do anything about it? The worst part about complaining is how addictive it becomes and how it can attract more negative experiences to one’s life. As Dr. Pavlina states, “your lifetime of thoughts acts like a resonating band of intention. That band’s overall signature determines what kind of life you live. A chronic complainer will manifest a predominantly negative life. A positive thinker will manifest a predominantly positive life.”
Surprisingly enough, negative people who often let their interior monkeys control them are aware of this problem and are not happy about it. “I act the way I act and I’m not proud of it,” Hellmuth often says of his crybaby antics. Yet he can definitely become trapped or addicted to this behavior to the point of not being able to break away form it. What closes the loop of the negative cycle of complaining is beating yourself up for being negative. Dr. Pavlina calls this process useless, since he says it is exactly like fighting with a hyperactive monkey: “the more you fight with the monkey, the more hyper it becomes. So, instead, just relax and observe the monkey until it wears itself out… Complaining is the denial of responsibility. And blame is just another way of excusing yourself from being responsible. But this denial still wields its own creative power.” You can catch yourself and learn from your behavior to deal with the monkey better until it starts losing the protagonist role in your life.
When experiencing a bad beat in poker, as any other unpleasant experience, one must see it as an opportunity to improve. It is a sign that you lack knowledge about a certain situation and by “failing” and analyzing how you could have avoided it or succeeded at it, you acquire the knowledge necessary to actually conquer it next time. According to Dr. Lavalli, if instead “you walk away from a bad beat and your entire thought process is ‘That guy was an idiot’ or ‘I am just unlucky’, then you have lost a valuable opportunity to improve your game.”
An exception to the rule, Phil Hellmuth has managed to become of the top poker players in history, despite his negativity. Even worse, according to Hellmuth, “the irony is that back in ’97 and ’98 people were saying my behavior was bad for poker. And I’ve really tried to stop whining. I really want to be better for me. But the last couple of years my sponsors, my producers, my agents, my companies tell me they want me to be Phil Hellmuth, the bad boy of poker. That’s what sells and grows the brand.”
Doesn’t it make you wonder how a world poker champ can accumulate bracelets and millions and still be popular in the gaming industry for behaving like a chimp? Well, such is the excitement of the game. The truth is that power and fame will set our interior monkeys free if we let them, and Phil’s drama sells. People are fascinated by the monkey act, which sets a toxic example for any player who longs to get as far as Hellmuth in game history. The good thing is that anybody can achieve the success Phil has without the embarrassing toddler behavior. Hopefully the poker champs of the future will honor that.
This article was published courtesy of ThisIsTheNuts.com.
This Is The Nuts (www.thisisthenuts.com) is a rakeback site devoted to giving online poker players the most competitive financial rewards for their play and referrals, as well as monthly promotions and freerolls. We are proud to offer 24/7 online support. TITN is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Swedish and Russian.
