Does poker make me better?

Just read the ton of material that CC wrote on the impact of poker on seven areas of his life. Figured I would take a large shortcut method to plan out my own thoughts on the same issues... I promise to be much shorter than one of his writeups to cover all seven points!

Spiritual - Well pokers bad beats give me another explanation for all things spiritual. Bad beats and probability explain most situations better for me than the thought of some dude in the sky messing with my life. Being an atheist I feel comfortable knowing that *I* am the person who is accountable for my results. That gives me a feeling of peace to wake up each day to be the best at anything I choose to do. Also having no fear of an afterlife lets me focus on enjoying this reality here and now. Sort of like when a video game ends and the "Game Over" shows up is how I view the world.... in the meantime lets rack up a high score! So poker is positive for me as it is just another area where I can learn about people and study them while having fun.

Financial - This is an area of poker where I naturally excel. Money sort of comes easy to me and poker lets me utilize my skills of understanding risk / return. Bankroll management is similar to my portfolio where the goal is to consistenty put your money into risky situations that are +EV with no risk of ruin. I think poker is not positive or negative in my life in this regard because it is the one place that I am a professional. That being said my poker game better develop so I can get to play Fuel at some high level tables.

Career - Similar to financial for me where poker just sharpens my ability to read people and make better decisions. I already had the job that I worked years to achieve prior to getting into poker so again no real impact. I will say that it has allowed me to network with even more people that also play and it gives us a common interest. Networking is at an insane level in my job where I regularly run into 20 people I know at almost any hockey game I attend. Poker could become a big positive if / when I win some large poker tournament!

Physical Fitness - Hell nothing can be blamed for the sorry state of health I am currently in other than my lazyness. Poker sure didn't make things worse so again I don't think it impacts me here one way or the other.

Maritial Relationship - Lucky to have an amazing wife who gives me the space and time to play. She would like to have me go to sleep a lot earlier most times but I have a hard time slowing down at the end of the day. Now when I play when she is awake and wants to talk then poker is a big negative. I suffer from a serious case of ADD which gives me some hyper focus on stuff I want to do but I then ignore everything else. The thing is that if I wasn't playing poker I would be reading / playing video games / doing something else because watching tv isn't much of an option. Overall, poker has to fall into the negative on the relationship mostly because she wanted me to have a hobby like cooking instead.

Parent - I play when my little Guin is sleeping so not negative from that standpoint. The negative part is when I am too tired the next morning to really put my time and energy into her activities.

Intellectual - For sure poker is positive in helping us all discover more about ourselves. This is the one area where hopefully we all continue to work at using our mind to its fullest capability. Seeing Doyle continue to kick ass at his age is super impressive and we can all aspire to do similar things.

Friendship - Just another great place to run into non-Bay St. thinkers. Blogging has also been a fun way to document the journey. Unlucky for everyone is that my writing skills are not going to improve anytime soon. Poker is positive in this area..... now if I can just get to a few more live blogger filled events.

Psychological - Poker has been positive with helping me stay level. When I started the steaming over bad beats was constant but now I only flinch a bit. Now the wife does say that she finds that I appear emotionless a bit more often which she doesn't like.

Wow that was long.