Awww, Depression Bear is in the house tonight.
I was hoping for a stronger end to the month (which is still a week and a half away), but as they say, it is what it is and since there is nothing that can be done about it, best to buy the dip. I didn't have much to buy with, however, I did have a few old orders in that cleared, so when it does turn around, that might make a slight difference.
My friend at work today was a bit depressed by it, saying that "He is tired of these dips" which I can agree with, but I am a bit more used to this side of it than him. He got in as it was climbing up after the bear market, so he has seen some very large gains on his investments - but there has been more recent up than down, but now he seems to feel that it is mostly down, as there have been a couple months of "depressed prices" in his opinion and he is getting that fear of - what if it is going to crash all the way down and all my gains are washed away and I am left holding bags?
Meh - then there is always the next bullrun.
That doesn't seem an attractive proposition though, does it? - especially since on the way up most people are imagining their new life of plenty and luxury, where they no longer have to worry about money again. It is very easy to imagine the "good life" which sets up a mental expectation that it is inevitable and the feelings get attached to what it sees, even if only in the head. Then, when the other inevitable happens and prices crash, there is a feeling of loss as the expectation goes unmet and disappointment sets in.
Just like managing stress, it is wise to manage expectations before things actually happen. I find that while everyone "knows" that loss is part of the game of investment, most people don't actually consider how it will actually affect them when it happens. Despite having a complex array of emotions, humans aren't actually very good at predicting how things are going to make them feel in the future and often plan for things with the expectation of feeling awesome, than feeling disappointment when that isn't met - only to do it again next time. It is like all the awesome new year's eve plans that end up being lackluster at best.
Like me, the best nights out you have ever had are the unplanned ones, the ones where you unwillingly get dragged out "for one" by friends, only for it to turn into a wild night of amazing experiences. The reason those nights are so brilliant, is that they are a surprise, there are no preconditions set, no expectations.
Everyone in crypto believes that the future is going to be more valuable than the present and even though they say "I am looking long" it doesn't mean that emotions are listening. Emotions don't give a crap about the future, they are only triggered by the present moment and they don't require any logic to fire. They are by definition, reactionary and when they see that big red bar, they are going to react faster than the brain and kill any gains chub that might be forming and encourage loss shrinkage instead.
It is kind of funny, because I normally have orders either side, so I am gaining either way, as on the upside I am gaining value, on the downside gaining tokens. If I didn't want the red, why do I have buys in at that level? Oh yeah - buy the fucking dip, because that is how gains are made.
Essentially, I should be happy to get tokens at the price I am willing to pay for them, as I obviously believe that it is a fair price considering their future value. That is investing. Yet, the emotions don't give a fuck about that kind of logic and they are overpowered by the feelings of loss and then the creeping fear that the loss is going to continue on unbridled.
I get those feelings still - I just ignore them as just more random noise in my day that I don't need to pay attention to, as I don't need to sell today to pay my bills and *shouldn't have to sell any time soon, as I have a job. At least for now. But I know some people are accustomed to listening to their emotional reactions on everything as if they are accurate all of the time, regardless of how often they are wrong. Just remember, all through your life, your emotions have told that you are making the best decision you can in every decision you have made. But, what does hindsight tell you?
I coulda handled that better.
Dam right.
We make a lot of stupid decisions when we are in fear of loss and our mind panics, as it tries to work out the best thing to do. Yet, how often are the decisions we make in that state actually the best decisions in hindsight as well? Rarely, from my experience at least. What are normally good decisions are those I have made well before my emotions have the chance to trigger, the logical ones that set buys and sells in the past at points where I was happy to do so.
Sure, sometimes I sell too early and sometimes buy to early if I am not watching, but it is still aligned with my overarching goal of the future. If I sell something too early on the way up, there is probably something else I can move into that hasn't climbed yet If I buy too early on the way down, it is just a matter of time, until it is up again... probably.
Our emotional states are pretty predictable, yet we tend not to prepare well for the things that affect us the most. This could be because we don't want to think about the discomfort it will cause us, or perhaps more likely, we have an overinflated sense of how we are going to handle adversity, so we don't mentally or physically prepare for it well.
I see this all the time with clients when talking about stress management. Everyone believes they are good at managing stress, when they aren't experiencing stress. Yet when they do become stressed, they think it is because the situation is so bad stress is inevitable - even though the person next to them doing the same job, in the same conditions, is coping fine.
We can all learn and practice methods of emotional self-control, yet many don't because they think it is natural to be whipped around in the emotional breeze. However, they never seem to factor in that we are conditioned to behave in certain ways, conditioned to react to FUD and FOMO and it is because of our lack of emotional control that we both suffer a great deal, and are far less effective at making good decisions when good decisions have a premium effect to take advantage of the situation - either limiting loss or increasing future gain.
But, you do you.
Some people seem to love the daily emotional drama of the ups and downs so much, that they ignore all the things that are important to getting them to where they say they want to go.
It is hard to be crypto rich, if unwilling to buy the dips. It is hard to buy the dips when there is the fear saying, it might go lower. Very few people ever catch the bottom and considering the future of crypto, near enough is probably good enough.
Depression Bear is short lived - but short is like soon, it depends how you feel about it.