Great way to articulate this! This very experience is relatable although in my case with normal stocks, and something very interesting happened.
I sold some stocks for a modest profit, checked a few days later, and read that if I had just held a little longer then my profit would have been like double. It was very frustrating, and there was that negative emotional reaction. Then I realized I'd somehow misread the numbers, and in fact I would have had my initial investment cut in half. My frustration melted into relief and happiness. But more than that, it shocked me into realizing something very important: in the moment, my emotions seemed real, but were actually completely disconnected from reality. Further, the sense of "control" I thought I had was revealed to be a complete illusion.
After that, these "bets" (gambles) have completely stopped affecting me, and I haven't experienced FOMO since.
Hope more people have the same liberating realization!
It took a long walk to break the bitcoin distraction and start to see sense. I think we should be wise about the technology we let into our heads. Especially when that technology is tied to money. I have 6 bank/share apps on my phone I check frequently. This may be my next area to tackle.
One more reason to HODL. Buy some bitcoins, forget that they exist, check the situation 10 years later... either bitcoin doesn't exist anymore (more likely), or you are a millionaire (less likely, but the chances are better than in lottery).
My colleagues are watching bitcoin prices all the time... most of them don't even own any! I bought some, and they were like "hey, did you notice the price went up, are you happy?" or "hey, did you notice the price went down, are you sad?" every day. I told them "guys, please do not talk to me about bitcoins; I am going to check their price in 2030, and until then, I don't care".
I have an approximate idea of where the bitcoin is now, because seeing the headlines on HN, it is hard to avoid the information. But I don't know what happened yesterday, or during the last week. I could check the current price in 5 seconds... but I won't, because emotionally I just don't care. Instead I will submit this comment, and then try to forget that bitcoin exists.
(And this is not specific to bitcoins; I would do exactly the same thing with gold or stock market. Unless active trading is my job, which it is not, I do not need the daily numbers.)
I wonder why this is so emotionally easy for me, and many other people seemingly can't do it. It's not like I don't need money. I don't even feel particularly stoic. It is suspiciously similar to learned helplessness. Maybe I just focus my attention elsewhere... like writing comments on HN.
I love this comment. It shows how different people's brains are wired as you say. For me bitcoin is like the story of the princess and the pea. I know it's a tiny thing but I can't get it out of my head.
I have shares I live with quite easily. Shares seem as close to me as I can get to actually having a connection with a product. I think I struggle morally to persue money for moneys sake. That's not a judgement on bitcoin owners. I just know for me I don't give two hoots about bitcoin and that somehow is important to me. I don't do the lottery either as I decided some time ago not to dream of what may be. This is a quick way to lose a sense of gratefulness for what you have.
Anyway, from the over sensitive to the emotionless, good luck with your coin :-)
What sent me down that rabbit hole in a big way was stoic philosophy. I’m not 100% on board with it, but when it comes to this it has literally changed my life. I now take an active role in how I perceive things and how I react to those perceptions, and I actually enjoy that exercise a lot.
So you lost some money. Can you still eat? Pay rent? Still have a job? Then it’s not a problem at all, is it?
Not long ago I would have gotten worked up too, and maybe I still would. Who knows. But there really isn’t any need for it.
After being told (of his exile), “Your case is being tried in the Senate,” Agrippinus responded:
“Good luck betide! But it is the fifth hour now” (he was in the habit of taking his exercise and then a cold bath at that hour); “let us be off and take our exercise.”
After he had finished his exercise someone came and told him, “You have been condemned.”
“To exile,” says he, “or to death?”
To exile.
“What about my property?”
It has not been confiscated.
“Well then, let us go to Aricia and take our lunch there.”
I don't think breaks ups are something you can fully mitigate the bad feelings of - relationships are about all that matter in life, whether with friends or lovers or family. So I wouldn't expect myself to feel better over night or repress feelings of sadness or loss, or beat myself up for giving in to bad feelings occasionally. You're human and you have feelings. The only thing you have any control over is how you evaluate and react to those feelings. The feelings don't define you, but your actions do.
Here are some key things I'd try to remind myself of though:
- Loss of relationships is guaranteed in life. Every day we should be cognizant of that. The people we love are going to be gone one day, by choice or otherwise. If we can reasonably expect to lose everyone, including ourselves, we should learn to be grateful for the time we have and avoid taking away from that by dwelling on what we can't control. We can aim to extend relationships by keeping up our health and investing in meaningful relations, but beyond that, what we have is fortune while what we lose is often inescapable. You may have many breakups in your life. More interestingly though, you may have many loves. That's much better to focus on. How do you get there, instead of dwelling on what was lost?
- Love fluctuates dramatically, even in most successful relationships. Even if no one was at fault (you did nothing wrong, the person you broke up with did nothing wrong), it's entirely natural for people to change over time. This is a good thing, even if it feels bad at times. If your relationship didn't have what it took to endure then put your energy into figuring out why and what could be done to make the next one more resilient. Good relationships require a lot of honesty and growth, and this is a great opportunity to practice honesty with yourself and use what you learn to develop your understanding of yourself and your relationships.
- What you've lost is, generally speaking, likely to come back. If love tends to be transient in our lives, especially for the earlier portion of our lives, we should regard individual relationships specially (because relationships really are special) but avoid trapping ourselves with the notion that a single relationships is integral to our being. These relationships will come and go. We can build strong and meaningful relations with countless people, even outside of romantic relationships. Hold all relationships highly, but don't let one rule over you. It was never going to last forever, right?
- On that note, the best relationships in life can't easily be "broken up", so to speak. They don't need an element of romance to be fulfilling or rewarding. Maybe this can be a reminder to seek out or focus on friendships which have endured and continue to deserve attention and energy. True friendship is exceedingly rare in many peoples lives and worth all the energy you put into it.
- Finally, something I try to remind myself often is to be at ease with being alone. I have a family but there was a long time when I didn't, and the best thing I practised was to be happy with being alone. Of course there are times when you simply won't like being alone - you want to be around someone, you want intimacy, you want to be loved or to love someone. That's fine. The key is to allow those feelings to occur and pass through as you refocus and realign your attention to the things you can control and improve. Take action on those things and benefit from enriching your life so future you can bounce back from this stumble.
This is exactly what you need to do in order to recover what you lost in the first place.
Some key things I found helpful were:
- Asking myself why I was lonely. What was it in my mind telling me I needed to be with someone? Was it something meaningful, or something egotistical? Was it boredom? Was it curable through spending time with friends instead of seeking a partner? Over time I've found the feeling varies, the cause varies, and it's important to pin-point it.
- Focusing on what's important in my life. There are a lot of rewarding things in life beyond a romantic relationship. Many of these things are immediately accessible. For me it's woodworking, playing guitar, or free diving. And of course friends as mentioned. This is made a lot tougher due to the pandemic of course, but you almost certainly have things in your life that are rewarding and deserving of your attention.
- Making sure I take care of myself and don't allow feeling bad about a lost relationship (or anything else) to turn into a downward spiral. Continue exercising, continue reading, talking to friends and family - once you allow negative thoughts and feelings to affect your routine and self care, you risk compounding negativity until you no longer act rationally and are overwhelmed by inadvertent self-loathing. These bad feelings can become you, and nipping that at the bud is genuinely very important.
Anyway, I'm rambling - I hope you're okay and that some of this resonates to some degree. These things are extremely personal and everyone will handle it slightly differently. What's useful to one person is useless to another. Regardless, if you're feeling down, hang in there and remember that this too will pass.
I get the same feelings as you do (we all do). I read that if the price goes up, we get an elated feeling but it's minor. But when we lose money, that negative feeling is twice as strong.
1) Long term investements which I almost never look at. Regular scheduled deposits going into an index fund.
2) Bets. Fun little side gambles which I always do for one purpose - aquiring something in the real world. Example: I want a new M1 macbook, but rather than drop $1k, I gamble $3k bitcoin. If it makes enough profit for the macbook, I sell immediately, and buy. If it drops, I just hang onto it until it goes up. But ultimately, this category of investment is never anything other than a bet, which I am OK losing. And, it's always a means to and end. I have a product in mind, and I justify gambling some money (which is fun) as a means to acquiring said product.
This is the most important concept of investing. You should never place an amount you wouldn’t be ok losing. If losing every cent of an investment could cause financial ruin, you’re investing too much.
I am not OK with losing the money I have invested, but it is so unlikely that I do not need to worry about it.
A situation where the global stock market crashes, and never recovers, is basically an apocalypse. That is not worth planning for.
This is all a big gamble with different risks. But generally: if you have “money” you have a risk to lose it.
I use here ““Money”” as a synonym for buying power, or value that can be exchanged. So it is not like Money because it dose not describe the meta value and is part of the big gamble ;)
Everybody is angry to see $crypto reaching 300% but when it dips back half, nobody wants it anymore, until it grows again. Trading flips our natural reflexes upside down.
The guru/superstition aspect is also something rare.. the actual knowledge of traders is really thin, but it can sound sophisticated if not advanced for the average crowd. Paired with the fact that all that is said comes with a "work 70% of the time" there's always enough room to justify errors and failures and still look like a guru to your crowd of wannabee-rich.
That said it's also a good tool to learn about calculated risk, adventurous and also balance (many start glue to their screens but with time you know how to not overspend your time like this).
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com//mobile/view/1...
http://www.1netcentral.com/articles/the-snake-rope-essential...
Your time horizon is set at 10 years so any gains or loss is just a paper loss.
If you need to check just do it once per day to get a idea if the market. But not in the morning because if your port is big enough it might affect your day. Try for lunch time to not affect your sleep.
Good luck!
Advising kids to lean away from modern life and push back on the progress of distracting technologies will actually be a more anti-social move than not.
What I mean is that to exist and live in the modern world increasingly requires adept skills at managing bespoke technological platforms. To be a social being in the 21st century is largely about navigating these platforms and being 'plugged in'. Disconnect, and you'll miss out on the flow of humanity.
I mention I don't like this because frankly, I miss the idea of small towns with supportive communities that had inherent dependencies on each other. The baker, the butcher, the doctor, the pastor, etc, everyone had a feeling of purpose and a connectivity to their community. Of course this ideological view of society is long gone so there's just no sense trying to push back. Accept that today's child is a highly connected, distracted, techno-proficient being and let that be that.
It's not about telling kids to unplug completely.
It's about balance.
There are so many endless digital distractions available today that people need to know how and where to draw the line on their consumption. Or they don't recognize that the short-term value they derive from scrolling Twitter or making a $100 gain on their Robinhood app comes at the expense of setting back their desired career goals, or personal fitness goals, or even their social goals.
It's exhausting to listen to mentees complain that they don't have enough time in the day to work out, or read a book they want to read, or cook the healthy meals they want to eat, but then they go on to discuss things like Bitcoin and Dogecoin for 4 hours straight in Slack or recruit their friends into another Twitter argument.
> Accept that today's child is a highly connected, distracted, techno-proficient being and let that be that.
Part of our role as mentors and/or parents is to guide young people in healthier directions.
There's nothing wrong with being connected and techno-proficient, and there's nothing wrong with having some fun on Twitter or Tik Tok. However, that doesn't mean we should go full laissez-faire and tell young people there's nothing wrong with being distracted all day every day.
There are a lot of parallels to diet: There's nothing wrong with eating donuts or cookies or bacon in moderation. However, if you overindulge in sweets, eat 3000 calories a day, and never moderate your intake of anything you're going to accumulate major health problems over the course of your life.
It's practically never about time, but rather about energy. People need some downtime from work and chores and "improving themselves", and BS arguments on Slack or Twitter is a way to unwind for some.
Like food, hyper-distraction affects different people differently, I've watched really bad habits affect real peoples lives in bad ways, and many people who grow up in a culture where that's normal may never break those habits.
Also like food, I'm spending way more time in front of screens in order to cope with the pandemic. Is it okay? Eh, not really, but I think it's okay to accept the necessity of overindulgence given the circumstances.
Yes and no. To be honest I am not very happy with all the articles/folks advocating that people should en masse self-medicate during covid with gaming/hours on internet. Its like unless you sit in front of computer/phone there is literally nothing to do at home, just slowly go crazy. I wish governments did recognize this since early pandemics and actually encouraged people to do individual sports outdoors, not effectively banning like in France. That's much better way to keep one fit mentally, and as a bonus physically too which helps not only with covid.
The reason for my opinion is this behavior creates patterns that will be very hard to shed off for many people, once things go +-back to as they were (although I don't think we ever get there 100%). Unfortunately, humans are creatures of habits and wired to create many dependencies, ie on substances, but also activities that produce dopamine rush.
I hope I am wrong in this. Maybe it won't be as bad and the same people would end up with these 'addictions' regardless of covid, maybe a bit less pronounced.
(But agreed on the "don't take a walk" style lockdowns. And I'm honestly surprised the backlash to them isn't stronger.)
Anti-social is the whole point. Because, precisely, society has been hijacked by consumerism.
It's nothing new, it started with the industrial revolution. Now that (almost) everyone has a fridge, a TV, a car, a washing-machine, a computer, a phone, attention is being siphoned in order to generate revenue.
> Of course this ideological view of society is long gone so there's just no sense trying to push back. Accept that today's child is a highly connected, distracted, techno-proficient being and let that be that.
I think "attention economy" should be treated as a threat and, on the contrary, mercilessly fought against (with education, and not just kids). Because it damage people's mind just like the industry damaged the environment. Don't make the same mistake twice.
It's only gone in ultra dense cities, as soon as we leave our techno bubbles the old world comes back real fast.
> Accept that today's child is a highly connected, distracted, techno-proficient being and let that be that.
I don't think you have to be that fatalist to be honest. When I see two years old kids already holding phones in their stroller, while the mom/dad is pushing the stroller with one hand and looking at the phone they hold in their other hand I feel like we went too far.
You can teach kid to use tech as a tool to navigate the world, but the vast majority of gadgets and services are pure distraction that are designed to trigger addiction mechanisms and milk your attention/time/money. I'd rather teach my kids how to become a master of google maps or how to use an app that let you navigate the night sky and its stars/galaxies than put them on fortnite and tiktok, I don't think these things exist on the same plane. I don't think people fully grasp how important the first decade of a child's brain formation is.
Self reported loneliness and teenager suicides have never been so high so I kinda cringe when I hear people saying restricting kids access to internet/tech will make them more disconnected and anti-social. A very large part of internet interactions are shallow and fabricated, they can't replace real world relationships in any way, shape or form.
I agree in some capacity that cutting out all these things would be very hard and probably damaging in some way, but embracing them completely without any restrictions is, imho, much worse
No, you aren't navigating the platforms, the platforms are configuring you so to speak as to work as just another input/output or relay, which is obvious in the language you're using here: 'connectivy'. (that's how we talk about switches and routers). As Baudrillard pointed out in his piece 'The Ecstasy of Communication', being a sort of input at some terminal and endless exchange of meaningless symbols isn't socialisation, it's the opposite. It's the destruction of the social through mass communication. It's like some sort of morbid dance that has no actual meaning at all, people mechanically switching tinder results back and forth to optimise an algorithm that makes that process easier in an endless feedback loop.
I mean, the amish and mormons exist, and their birth rate is quite healthy.
I meditate every day and it's cost me nothing, uses nothing, does not require going anywhere, literally brushing my teeth is more of a commercial activity than meditation is.
Meditation is exactly what your students could use most effectively to learn to manage distracted minds, so given you are in a position of mentorship it's kind of sad you seem to think the basic act of sitting and doing exactly nothing but observing how it feels is some kind of corporate fad that should be avoided.
Edit: Grammar
What do these apps do? Ive been giving meditation a shot recently. (Because i have similar thoughts about my distractions) So im aware of them, ive been mediating just by setting the timer on my phone and finding some quiet time and then well mediate. Mediate as i understand it is just sitting still and being present and aware of your mind wandering then bringing it back to being present.
What am I missing?
You see it very often on HN with all the articles about tweaking your productivity, scheduling everything, writing what you're doing every 15 minutes in a logbook as to not lose a single second of your life to "unproductivity", &c.
We're applying machine concepts to human life as if all that mattered was how much "things" you can produce and how much other things it allows you to consume
One of my last year's most productive days, I was stuck in a small hotel room on a business trip for a entire day, with a 13-inch laptop on shit wifi. In just a few hours I wrote one of the most useful document for my job in the last couple of years. I guess I had nothing else to do, and had no distractions.
Both at my office and home, I have all kinds of ergonomic setup, great connection, comfortable drinks, whatever. And I work ok there most of the time, but I got more focused and productive stuck in a hotel on a small laptop and a wooden chair…
Recently this video [1] got my the same impression. A dozen content producers in the "productivity" niche show their workplace. Obviously there are some high-tech desks full of expensive latest tech, but also some simple laptops and a wooden chair. In the end it doesn't matter, they're all producing good output regardless of their productivity setup.
So it looks more like a hobby than an actual link to being productive. It's really not about the apps or setup.
Stillness has become difficult and while the digital interactions haven been an imperfect substitute, they’re better than nothing and it’s even more challenging to engage in good digital habits when you’re leaning on these networks for such basic needs.
It’s been a challenge.
50 years ago this used to be normal. Now for some reason everybody expects perfection out of everybody at all times.
Insanity.
50 years ago you would compete with your surroundings, now you compete with the whole city, country or even world in some cases. And this applies to everything: work, relationships, sex life, etc.
(Also, the ROI stuff is a rough guide, read/view/listen to whatever you'd like, I'm not your dad!)
I invest now but I have to be conscious of obsession mitigation techniques otherwise I will constantly be watching fluctuations and wondering if I need to sell, buy something else, etc. Instead I buy big boring companies that pay a dividend...and never sell. Just watch for whatever looks like the best deal at the time when I have new money to invest.
Many young people are entering the market with an expectation that cryptocurrency prices only go up and that they can outperform Wall Street by getting hot tips (DD) from meme-infused posts on Reddit.
When it doesn't work out, they swear off "investing" when they never actually did anything beyond speculation and daytrading.
I hope apps like Robinhood find a good way to encourage portfolio balance, dollar cost averaging, and risk management over time.
1) You can be right and still lose significant amounts of money. I've lost many thousands myself on something that I was eventually right about, timing is key - and it doesn't do to dwell on any decision - whether because you lost or could have made more. Sure, if I'd just invested my pocket money in bitcoin when I first mined it in 2012 I'd be retired already - but I didn't - shit happens.
2) If you are attaching emotion to your positions you're doing it wrong. This is a huge point, not one I've personally mastered - which is why I don't play with stocks anymore.
3) The whole cycle of emotions surrounding markets is explained brilliantly by George Soros in 'The Alchemy of Finance'. This is an excellent read. It's interesting and illuminating that Soros was a student of Philosophy and not strictly mathematics or business.
In my own experience there are two layers to markets - what actually is and what people think is or will be; usually the latter is much more powerful in terms of short term positions. One of Soros's points is that the two interact and influence the other eventually.
I was recently asked to attend a virtual mentoring session and I didn't due to scheduling conflicts but I had no idea what to say had I attended. I was going to kick it off if they had any questions about anything and then move into my career over the years. I didn't want to share too much because I feel it would be bragging.
I think most of them sincerely wouldn’t know what to do in those 4 hours. Working on their laptops? I guess I wonder: How can people “accomplish things” nowadays without being on a device?
Having internet access increases the potential for distraction by a lot. Some websites are specifically designed to be addictive. The easiest way to deal with this is to block them on your device during certain times of the day.
For me I never want to unplug because it brings me all the stress from things I have going on (and not going on) in life. This continuous online state has allowed me to putoff major life decisions.
I'd say those students are learning a lot.
A few could make a profit or loss that is life-changing to them (this might also be a surprisingly small amount of money), and they are also presumably learning how to assess their risk profile in reality (as user warent describes in their comment) and be less likely to squander a much larger portfolio later.
From a mentor perspective, it's exhausting to hear students complain that they don't have any time to study or schedule interviews, then watch them spend 4 hours talking in the group Slack about their Dogecoin speculation theories.
This is the most interesting part to me, people managed to monetize these things. After vacations, entertainment, now they monetize idleness, I really don't know what to think of it. The funny thing is that they're really two sides of the same coin, they both compete for your time and money
It's really reflective of a (hopefully) near-endgame of marketing: turning over the last stones available. Well, I don't really believe that.
Again, a failure of economics. EVERYTHING shouldn't be monetized, that is truly a path to dystopia, where you pay for the air you breathe.
I just came back from a very free (for now) walk in the woods.
I never thought of it this way, very interesting. But it's not surprising. There's obviously a demand for these types of products.
I think you may have accidentally omitted some words.
The distraction issue is the number one issue holding back most of the young people in the mentorship group I’m part of. They’re so glued to their phones to check minute-by-minute updates about COVID death tolls, how big their stimulus checks are going to be, the value of their crypto portfolio, GameStop, and every other popular topic under the sun that they don’t have any attention left for their own lives.
Bitcoin is especially distracting right now, as they’re all nervously watching the real-time changes of their $1000 portfolios to see if they need to be sad about losing money because it’s crashing or sad about not investing more money because it’s going up.
These are all smart students. I always wonder how much more they could accomplish if they’d simply pick four hours each day to turn off their phones. That’s a tough sell, though.