Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

The aphorism frames the classic philosophical tension between determinism and free will through a familiar metaphor. “The hand you are dealt” suggests the unchosen conditions of existence—birth, social circumstance, historical moment, temperament, and chance events—that constrain what is possible. “The way you play it” asserts a remaining sphere of agency: judgment, courage, strategy, and moral choice in responding to those constraints. The image implies neither absolute fatalism nor unlimited autonomy; instead it proposes a compatibilist middle ground in which human freedom is exercised within given limits. Its appeal lies in making an abstract debate practical and ethical: responsibility attaches to how one acts with what one has.