Will this challenge finally prove to be too much?

If this post comes off like I'm bragging, do understand that is not the intention at all (not for this post at the very least). I will definitely touch upon the topic of humility some other time, but for now, all I would say on the topic is that I identify closely with the following quote from Frank Lloyd Wright - "Early in life, I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change."

Anyway, back to the topic - ever since I can remember (at least since I was five), I've been a couple of steps ahead of my peers, aptitude-wise. This has remained true as the peer group that I measured myself against progressed from 50 students in a small non-prestigious school in Bangalore to students throughout my state to the whole of India. When I went to Singapore for my undergraduate degree, the same thing continued. It is important to note that this doesn't mean that I was at the top of my class/peer group in each standardized measure, but that I figured out that I could achieve any result I wanted with much lesser effort than most of my peers had to put in. 

Without belaboring the point, the same trend continued at the Ivy-league law school I went to (where I spent most of my time involved in the Craft beer club and the Card club, avoided attending classes as much as possible and studied on the day before each exam) and when I wrote the California bar (objectively the hardest bar exam in the country) after what could not have been more than 2 weeks of studying. I ended up in the top 30% of my law school every year, found a good job, and passed the California bar on that first attempt.

There were two clear consequences of these experiences - 1) I have never found any intellectual task too daunting to take on, and 2) I have tended to find myself preparing less for and "winging" a lot more tasks than I probably should have. Every instance (both big and small) of such a result has reinforced the process even more. It is almost as if the universe keeps rewarding me for my lack of preparation and the ability to do figure things out on the fly.

Now, I find myself in a similar situation - trying to play in 10-12 WSOP tournaments for the first time with probably among the least amount of tournament poker practice in the field. I have partly-subconsciously and partly-actively tried to ensure that I do not over-prepare for this summer to see if my streak of positive results when I try to do something on the fly continues, or if this is one step too far.

If the results this summer are positive, that will only serve to reinforce the experiences in my life and I suppose that nothing will change on that front till I actually screw up in a big fashion. If on the other hand the results this summer are negative, while financially not too significant, will hopefully ensure that I take the next important step (that of finding an ideal job over the next few months) more seriously in terms of preparation and take less of a serendipitous approach to it.

This is the biggest reason why I'm really looking forward to this summer.