Do YOU care what people think?

Now lets get one thing straight. The choice i'm in the midst of making is not between working or playing poker, its between working when i know i'm going to miss half the week every week ill, and not working. My consultant at the hospital thinks taking a 'time-out' will hopefully be a catalyst for recovery, less pressure will hopefully give the treatment i'm currently on time to work, and if they fail another operation, which at the moment looks inevitable would be the last option. This would hopefully alleviate the illness, at least for a few years anyway.

Now i've decided to, for once, take the doctors advice and need to find ways to support myself. The thought of just living on incapacity/income support, or whatever, for a year makes me want to puke as much as being snap called on the bubble of any major MTT, when i'm trying to steal the blinds with junk. Much the same as my exit from the LPM event last night!! With that in mind poker seems a fairly obvious choice. In the last 3 months playing only small to mid sized events i'm currently around $35,000 in profit. This is without playing full time, and really not so far this year putting in the hours working on my game or playing it. Going forward i'll be looking to play a minimum of 2 nights live a week, and rest online which i can do whether feeling well or not.

On top of all this i'm looking into other options to generate an income. I've working in web based media for a long time in both marketing, sales and some development areas. With this in mind I, with a partner are looking to launch a website. I also want to write poker related articles, and am again in discussions with some publishers about the project. Whether any of these will come to fruition is another matter, but at least i'm exploring other options. If all this fails, then income support it will be, and then who knows. Maybe back into sales next year...

The question i have to ask other full time poker players is DO YOU care what people think when they find out what you do for a living? I guess we like it or not, poker is still viewed as gambling. something I'm not too bothered about. If everyone knew it was a pure game of skill then less people would sit in games thinking they can win in the long term. What does bother me is small minded people reflecting what I'm doing to earn money on my daughter. I pick my daughter up from school pretty much everyday at the moment. Something i want to continue doing for the rest of this year, and hopefully much longer. After picking her up one day last week she mentioned what other parents might this, in particular one mother. I assume this mother has the view poker is gambling, therefore bad, therefore I'm a bad person, and anyone i bring up . Now this woman to me has always seems like a bit of a grade-A bitch, and her looks remind me of Gail from Coronation Street. On the face of it I still don't care, but i had to explain to my daughter again that the choice isn't between poker and working, but between being ill and working. I assume she'll tell her friend, who in turn will tell her mum. I doubt it'll change her view, but you can win them all...

So DO YOU really care what people think?

dbx