I’ve been struggling to wake up and motivate for my workout this week. It’s partially that I’m not sleeping well but also that I’m overthinking things. I’m sure this is due to moving into my new position at work.
Before I got out of bed this morning I committed my worst sin and checked my phone. I was scrolling Hacker News and saw a story about how to prepare for a recession. Its a great post though and I am glad I read it and then the comments in Hacker News.
Basically the advice is that, if you are investing in a pragmatic long term method, a recession is just a bump in the road. This is great advice and something I have been practicing for about ten years now. If you have questions I recommend starting here with the Bogleheads.
What is insightful for me was the HackerNews comments and specifically the top voted one when I looked. Comments on an internet forum are about the lowest form of intelligence I have seen. Youtube takes the cake here but even an ‘enlightened’ site like HN has pretty bad commentary. This one is a great example as well. They even admit to having read the entire article but still miss the point.
The point of investing, for me and many others at least, is to let some of my money accrue in a long term approach so that at some point I can stop working on a daily basis. This means that I am not trying to time the market or guess the future. Instead I trust that the economy will continue to grow steadily as it has for the last 100+ years. If that does not happen then it probably means money is worthless and we are either living in caves or have moved into another type of arrangement that doesn’t involve money.
What does that have to do with patience and me not sleeping well or working out? Well kinda everything. If I am not patient with investing and try to time the market history shows that I will probably lose a lot of money. If I am not patient with work and allow things outside of my control to happen I will annoy my coworkers and not do a great job. Finally if I am not patient with my workouts and take the time to do them then I will not improve my overall health.
All of these activities are a practice of some type and doing them well requires patience.