I'm a Minesweeper addict.
I guess the B-) came pretty rare.. and :'-) came rather frequently.. and a :-) essentially at every start.
We start almost everything with a smile, when we have actually no idea whatsoever as to how that something might turn up as.
Needless to say, we always start with something small.
You flag your milestones and burn in the mines. You take help of the numbers, ever so colourful, every time telling a newer story.
We smile at something we have no idea about, and dive in it straight. Result? :'-)
And :'-) a rather too many times.
Then finally comes the elusive B-)
First by fluke, then by random guesses, then by calculated moves.
The ratio of :'-) to B-) starts changing.
We then become slightly bold, and choose to seek out for a harder goal, we go for the medium difficulty board.
Our ego fuelled by Intermediate wins is benumbed pretty soon, actually.
Now, you try a little harder. You set your mind to a higher difficulty level.
Practice teaches you and you understand your own gradual progress.
With practice, you become more efficient, more durable in the field.
With some effort, your smiley finally wears sunglasses.
Victory seems a sweet word, after all.
Once again your ratios overturn, your timing improves..
and then you become ready for the bigger challenge.. but in a more humble mindset..
You ready yourself for the bigger step..
You try your hand with your existing knowledge.
You fail. Miserably so.
Then you improve your technique.
You spend hours rectifying your strategy, your approach to this challenge.
Out of curiosity, you try the earlier easier formats, but they now become too drab for your taste.
You now start getting at this point more and more frequently...
You get back to refining your win/loss ratio, until you reach this point...
(observe above mines carefully)
This is the point, when logic fails to satisfy you in totality.
You try, and retry. And fail with just 1-2 mines left, and no logic proving helpful.
You hate the entry of luck in the most logical game ever.
You try again and again to disprove the factor of luck in logic, but miserably fail to do so. Habit fails to help, logic fails to help and your ratios don't overturn.
Slowly, you learn to accept your luck. Now, with practice, you're already good enough to not fail in logic, so the only variable now is luck, and your win/loss ratio entirely now depends on luck.
Life's similar, people.
We need practice to increase our probability of success, at the same time we need a certain amount of faith in some higher authority (that remains uncovered so far, atleast by our limited logic). The weirdish sixth sense that's lent by this 'faith' variable does a lot good, especially because now you atleast have something to turn to when your logic is all used up. Faith is an emotion, as is the passion for success that drove you the long way. So at the end of the day, you started with a smiley and you dived in, and you ended up with either satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
In other words, all that logic was for your emotions.
A better B-) :: :'-) ratio makes you happy, while a not so good B-) :: :'-) ratio makes you dissatisfied or angry or irritated.
I'm neither glorifying only emotions or only logic here.
I'm suggesting an ideal balance of both.
Because only then can you enjoy to work and work to enjoy.
And be ready for something like this...
