Pain…and…Confusion

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Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Went through my financials again.

It is nothing but Pain…and…Confusion!

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PAIN!

I have made so many mistakes — and those mistakes are so expensive that I can barely afford them even now.

The combined financial costs alone of those mistakes are easily 2x my total net-worth now.

So I experience very negative feelings, pain, regret, self-blame and sometimes anger.

But I am kind of still repeating some of those mistakes.

Time to learn, dude!

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Compared to PAIN, CONFUSION is even a more serious problem, because it directly impacts the actions I take.

CONFUSION 1: How to get past the past?

I realize three reasons why I cannot get past the past:

1. It is hard to ignore the heavy losses — I would have hit my retirement numbers if not for these mistakes
2. I do not want to take easy on myself — I would like to retain these as painful reminders so that I learn
3. I have not got rid of my legacy portfolio — Honestly, I am not sure what to do with them.

Part of me wants to clear them and start over. These are individual stocks that I do not know and I do not have interest in researching them either. Also, they are not generating returns.

On the other hand, if I clear them, paper loss will turn into actual loss. And even though they are not generating returns, they are not tanking much further either. I have lost 98% of the value for some stocks. How much further down can they go?

Also, I do not know if I clear them and invest the money elsewhere, the return would be better. Actually, I am secretly hoping that some of these will bounce back, hopefully faster than the world index. But I understand hoping is not a strategy.

Closing my eyes and following my gut, I guess I am a little inclined to clearing them and investing the money in World index. After all, I can hold world index for 20 years. I do not know how many of those individual stocks I currently have will still exist in 20 years.

But it is much harder to pull the plug than logically expected. 

If you are reading this article and have advice for me, I would be grateful.

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CONFUSION 2: What is the right way to build wealth?

I am struggling to keep up with my yearly target on Total Net-Worth growth, which I set a few years back before Covid. And that was a very conservative target.

Our expenses largely stayed within our estimates. So the problem is the income.

Our salary income has grown faster than planned, partly due to inflation. But the investment losses are really holding us back.

As you can see from my monthly updates, investment losses just erased our monthly salary for some months.

Needless to say, I am still very far away from my 40/40 goal.

So I am not exactly doing well here.

And I am not sure what the right way is. Investment outcome is just so out of our control. I can see no path to wealth with enough certainty.

I thought of taking investment courses, but I do not want to spend the efforts and I do not really trust them — part of the reason we are in this deep loss was due to my wife taking some of these courses and following some of those “experts”.

The three things I can figure out for now that might work is:

1. Work hard for promotions and pay raises — Still out of my control, but less so than investments I would say
2. Cut expenses — This does not make me feel good. We are always frugal people. Sometimes, I do feel that my family and I deserve better. What’s worse, the expenses saved is nothing compared to investment losses
3. DCA into World index — Outcome is out of control, but activity is controllable. This time, I will stick to it — I do not have any better ideas anyway.

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Lets see how it goes and as usual, I will post weekly, monthly and yearly updates.

Till next time!

Back in time…

 

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Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

For the first time in my life, I cannot stop thinking about how much better my life would be if I could go back in time.

The thoughts just keep coming up in my mind and grabbing my attention.

I do not know what this means…

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1.It started with too much free time and went back in time

I have had too much free time lately.

With my work in silent period (major stakeholders on vacation), freelancing projects more or less completed and Start-Up abandoned, I have too much free time these few weeks.

I started to think what I should do to waste all these time away.

And that was when all the thoughts started to come.

And it went deeper in time.

Firstly, it was just about things that happened recently.

And then, it went back a few years and a few years more…

And now, it reached my university life.

Now that we were here, I simply took my thoughts further, to pre-university life. 

Well, after a glance, I did not see anything I would regret and cry to change. 

So university time is where I would stop for now.

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2.Never before

This has never happened to me before.

For sure, I regret things from time to time and wish I could turn back the time and change them.

But I never went back so far or wanted this much.

I had been generally proud with my journey.

There were up-and-downs and stupid mistakes were made here and there. But I got myself here from a small village after all.

Now, I just could not stop thinking how I could put my university time to better use and how I could more carefully plan my career etc etc

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3.What does this mean?

I am not sure what this entails.

A sign of being too unsatisfied with reality?

Being unsatisfied with reality will push people to dwell in the past.

But things should not be that bad for someone who has too much free time and not many worries in life.

Or maybe I just do not realize what is going on deep down.

A sign of becoming even less mature compared to 15 years ago?

15 years ago, before university, there was a discussion in the class on “Which regret would you eliminate if you could go back in time?”.

I said to the teacher and class that it did not matter because it was inevitable to have regrets in life.

If we chose A, we would be wondering whether B was better and vice verse. And we could not choose A and B at the same time.

So this question was meaningless to begin with.

I believed I got praised. I was happy.

Now I am older and less mature.

Or I was just being naïve then.

A sign of feeling powerless and hopeless?

Feeling powerless and hopeless could lead people to wish they could go back in time and change things.

Even Superheroes and Mutants are no different, apart from that they actually did go back in time and change things in their worlds, aka movies and comics.

Does someone who has too much free time feel powerless and hopeless?

Maybe!

But not so much about the world, but more about himself. 

One thing within his control is the willingness to sacrifice and the actions to pursue, which is weak currently.

Or he just does not want it badly enough.

A sign of giving up and living in memories?

Giving up may not be the worst option.

The problem here is that there are no memories worth living in.

Or any memory is good enough. The key is to manage expectations.

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4.Another possibility

Some who has too much time does not think he deserves to enjoy it.

So he feels the anxiety.

He could not just lay down and enjoy the break.

And he does not know what he could do here and now to improve his situation.

Well, the more accurate description is he does not believe anything he could do here and now can improve his situation.

So he is stuck in the middle, wasting precious life away on things he does not enjoy.

How complex life can be.

How incomprehensible man can be.

How simple it can become if he just stops giving a damn.

Till next time!