The Gift of the Desperate

I am not much of a fanboy when it comes to pretty much anything. There are things I like of course, but I don't have a "favorite" this or that which I care enough about to do anything other than listen to it, watch it or consume it - but I have to say, I am pretty excited about opening my first Chaos Legion packs tomrrow.

There is less than 24 hours to go:

And I am expecting that there are going to be a lot of Splinterlands posts from other excited people. I wonder how many of them are going to be disappointed by what they receive? Personally, I have been trying to mentally prepare for my own disappointment, since I know that expectation tends to lead to that path and I have invested quite a lot of my personal value into just have what I hold now and will look to increase this in the open sale - I have my credits already.

I don't know how many times I have bought something with the "expectation" that it is going to be awesome and then, I am underwhelmed, but I do think this is common. In fact, I think that it is near daily in crypto that this happens in some way or another. For example, in just the last few days, I have bought some tokens with the belief that they are near the bottom and ready to go up, only to see them move down another 20% a few hours later. This is a resolution problem, as I am confident that overall, there will be upward movement, but it is disappointing from the view that in the near-term, I could have added more tokens easily, which of course, has much larger effects down the track.

As a non-maximizer, it is easy not to spend too much time worrying about these "small percentages" but when zooming out, these small percentages add up to potentially, very large amounts. For instance, currently for every single cent HIVE moves up, it is going to increase my theoretical token wealth by at least 2000 dollars. That means that a dollar movement is going to be worth 200K - which is about the same amount as a small and very basic house here - or a rental apartment. Considering that this is the effort of five years of activity, those small percentages are starting to have an effect, and I missed most of my opportunity.

However, when zooming into the daily ups and downs of the markets, it is easy to get caught up in the maximization process for some, worrying so much about these percentages that the big picture of the long-term view gets lost, causing a lot of stress and anxiety. As a friend of mine said a couple days back to me:

This crypto stuff really builds character though 😅 If an index fund were to drop 20% in one day it would be considered an unmitigated disaster.

Crypto people are probably seen as crazy because, we are crazy. My friend is right, how many people could watch 20, 30 or 50 percent of their wealth evaporate in hours and say - "it'll be fine"? How many in the world will be willing to dump values of houses into buying packs of digital cards, not even knowing whether the cards in side are going to be of any value at all?

Crypto people are a rare breed, but it is a breed that is becoming increasingly common in the world. Perhaps the difference between the early adopters and the early majority is that those in first opted-in by choice, while those to come are going to be influenced heavily by economic necessity - like I was myself. However, five years is a long time in crypto and that influencing pressure of financial scarcity is not as pressing as it once was, meaning that I keep opting into crypto without being forced by financial conditions.

I believe this is an important step in my own evolution as an investor and one that has taken a long time to prepare. It has required a huge amount of learning through doing, but the most important aspect is shifting my own scarcity mindset into a new paradigm where I feel that there is far more potential to earn, so I don't have to chase every possible source of income. I think there are many people who are in my position, yet they are unable to stop chasing, making them a follower not an adopter. Adoption requires moving into a position of usage, of skilled competence, not one of constant stress to take part.

If you think about this from the perspective of an emerging industry at large, it is akin to being in the midst of a goldrush just after it has been struck, where there is a lot of pushing and jostling for position. But as the industry matures, secondary and tertiary activities are born that start to create opportunity and wealth through other approaches, meaning that not everyone has to push and shove to get a piece of the action and benefit.

Many in crypto still very much have the "goldrush mentality" and are therefore under constant pressure to chase the vein, but more and more, people are looing to consolidate their activities and push wealth into lower volatility, calmer areas that might not offer the astronomical return, but do build consistently. The percentages might be lower, but when zooming out on the future, they add up to very large gains.

But, this requires a lack of desperation and a lot of people coming into crypto are desperate in one way or another, so they chase - like a guy trying to hard to pick up a girl at a bar, it generally doesn't work. Desperation leads to poor decisions, because of the emotional frame that a person is in and will often lead to the opposite result than what is aimed for. But, in order to build the emotional position for success, generally takes experience, practice and a fair amount of failure from which to learn.

This experience is hard to get when people are already so risk averse that they are not willing to risk anything out of fear of loss, which is why so many people are continually chasing the free, rather than putting in something with which to start to learn from. For me personally, I think the best thing I ever did back in 2017 was added a few hundred euros and got some of my own skin in the game, as it made it real and got me started on a path of developing the emotional conditions to as my friend said, build the character to deal with the daily ups and downs, as well as the patience for the long-term outcomes. Desperate people can't be patient, they are desperate.

So tomorrow, it is going to be a "come what may" affair, where regardless of what I put in, regardless of whether it is a financial gain upon opening (it won't be), I will enjoy the process of the day and look long on the future, in the hope that all of this adds up to something substantial later. Of course, I didn't bet the farm on it, but I might have taken a lien on the stables.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]