Topic: Mentally coping with Loss - Thread (Read 2849 times)

Fine!  Service Pack 3, 2.0, OSX Yosemite, XBMC Kodi....

You know what I meant!   

Alpha is before the beta version btw mate. Just pointing it out

Hey you took a shot at it and got a financial loss.  Losing sucks, period.

That said, this is a 6 year old project that hasn't even left beta, so chances of bumps in the road are inevitable.

Investing in unproven tech is always uber risky, and myself have suffered financial lumps during this process.

So for me, I can't tell you how to feel or what to do or how to cope, but personally....I'm gonna see this year 6 beta project called Bitcoin through!   

Can't wait to see it when it reaches Alpha...

Been lurking for years.  I really like this guy!  There is no loss.  You are but a fragment of the universe:  irrelevant AND essential.  I made that up.  I must be a genius.  I am addressing the whiner and NOT sgbett (once again -- big fan of sgbett). 

No whiners in a revolution!  Sorry for any offense to any person improperly designated as a whiner.  The internet will provide you with many opportunities to correct said designation.  Internet is cool.

There have been many revolutions.  Some were better than others. What was the fuel for those revolutions?  What is the revolution taking place today?

If you don't need the money, don't sell. 

In your case, don't invest unless you are debt free, paid off mortgage etc.  Be it stocks, currencies, precious metals, real-estate etc.
Stay away from any investments until you are completely debt free.

If I were you, I'd sell what you have, take the money, enroll in some college or university, upgrade your skills and
improve your earning potential.

BTW, bitcoin price might improve in few months or years.  Probably after people like you exit the market.

The mistake you made - and still appear to be making - is that you measured your gain/loss in dollars.

If it's only more dollars you want just work more hours.

If it's bitcoin you want then buy, hold and stop measuring your success in dollars.

Do one or the other but make up your mind.

I bought bitcoin in 2013 because I thought it was an exciting phenomenon and I wanted to have a "horse in the race". I wanted to be in bitcoin - not in dollars because I thought it was an immensely powerful technology and had a bright future. I measure the success of my "judgement" in terms of adoption, proliferation of understanding, consolidation of the technology etc, so I don't feel depressed, I feel great. 2014 has been a massive year for all that. All that happened with the price is that it consolidated from a big rise which is what markets always do after a big rise.

Either stop feeling sorry for yourself and be happy that you've got any bitcoin at all, or sell it all if you're no longer interested in the technology and don't touch it again.

The only people who successfully use markets as a guide to what they value are professional day traders.

Seems like a nice article. I guess it would also apply to gambling and all.

I'm assuming this is the first time the OP has ever invested in anything, much less stocks and commodities?

OP, you really think that you are the first person who has ever taken a position in something while it was still in a downturn?  

I can give you a whole laundry list of stocks that from 2014 all are still in downturns... many that have lost as much as 60-70% or more since the start of 2014.  But it doesn't make those people who invested in those stocks stupid or naïve.  Just unlucky in the year 2014, that's all.  But most long investors that are good at what they do, have learned to hold for YEARS and think big picture.

Even Facebook IPO'ed initially at around $40/share.  And then promptly entered a downtrend that lasted about 14 months, bottoming out ~$18.  So sure, some early FB investors were supposedly devastated that they had somehow made a bad decision buying at the IPO, likely selling at a loss. But many smart longs just held or bought more at the bottom, lowering their cost average, and patiently waited.  And now FB is trading around $78/share.

TL;DR - It takes extreme patience to be a Long investor in anything worthwhile.

And if you are losing sleep over it, you are over invested or leveraged.

I have never lost a lot of money, so I don't know how to give you any legit advice. What can I say tho, is that I have lost sometimes half a BTC, for me that is a lot, and I take hits as good as I can.
What i've learned is its better to hold.

technically speaking it's a loss which has not been realized, yet.
Same applies to wins!

Are you serious. I don't think thats true at all. Even if you had only 1 bitcoin, you would have lost 400$ on average in the last 6 months. How would holding have prevented that loss ?

School case if hindsight bias
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

If you're on the internet and you get frustrated by stupidity and arrogance, you're going to have a bad time :-)

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/12/psychological-coping-strategies.asp

Bhuddist philosophy can help you realize that money, like any other materialistic pursuits, is futile.
It's easier said than done, but I found that listening to charismatic buddhist lamas helps a lot to assimilate that concept.
Basically, the idea is to transform your mind so that you can view the world through another lense where money wouldn't really be such big deal.

To give a metaphore, it's a bit like if your life was a video game played by your mind: do you care if your character is poor so long as playing is interesting? Maybe losing money was an important twist in the plot that unlocks some deep learning. Imagine if you had become rich, you may have become one of these self-righteous idiots and ended up missing completly the point of your life on earth. Getting rich quick is like playing with cheat codes: life becomes boring and unchallenging, and playing without the cheat codes becomes unbearable.

One good place to start is this video of Google Tech Talks where they invited the bhuddist nun who started the Prison Liberation Project. The video is about being your own therapist. I like this video because it's very down to earth, easy to understand and very well adapted to the western mind.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nasIq4E9nNg

edit: fixed video link

write off every cent you put into bitcoin. assume its already dead. *then* hold. its much easier that way. (and also forces you to consider every €50 you might think of buying BTC with from here on in - in line with your own circumstances)

I'm just asking questions and making suggestions.  As for repetitive phrases, please provide a source to back up your argument.

Bitcoin may go up, may go down, I'm open to any possibility.  But, I've seen this all before and expect I'll see it all again.

if you are not comfortable with a position, you should dump it all, immediately.

even if its a winner.

I remember being mocked to death on these forums because i sold all my bitcoins (100s of them), between 300 and 500 on the way up to 1000+

I was uncomfortable with the speed of the rise and wanted out, end of story.

then I average into bitcoin at 280 again, sold it all at 250 because again I was not comfortable.

At this point I am not comfortable with bitcoin at any price, even $20. I am waiting to see that ETF get denied and then we will see the *real* bitcoin crash, to make all others over the last 12 months look like trainee crashes.

whatever you cash out now is worth something. If bitcoin falls to zero then what? you lose everything.

face facts, deep down inside you are praying that bitcoin gets up to your breakeven, so you can get out without a loss. Guess what? EVERYONE from 1100 down who did not sell is thinking the same thing. You have no idea how much selling pressure that is going to put on any moves up in bitcoin.

And you do not have friends on these forums, you have lots of people with vested interests in seeing bitcoin go up.

on a side note : you can always earn more money. There are much more important things, like your health, your family, even your youth.

It is not on you to judge if i am here for the wrong or right reasons (by whose standards?) - these repetitive phrases you machinegun out on everyone who doesn't agree with you mean nothing to anyone - how can they? 

Did you notice how OP is not a trader? He used btc as a two year speculative investment. Please read carefully next time and grasp the context before replying.