theBlogOfAlright

 I finally understand what Buffett meant when he said you don’t have to swing at every pitch. As individual investors (or non-institutional investors), we don’t have the pressure to perform year-after-year. No one is holding us accountable to return 10% a year - this gives us flexibility to buy or not buy - or i.e. to stay in cash for prolonged periods of time (and perhaps stay in money market). This provides individual investors the option to only swing at the truly great pitches (wait till a stock is convincingly undervalued). Of course, you can go short - but you then fall into the trap of trying to time the market. And as Buffett has also said, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. If the market keeps running up because of irrationality - or some other reason - you lose if you are short. So why even take the chance? Why not just stay in cash and be safe, and if the market does tank, that's when you strike/swing the hardest.

If you become overly sad or depressed for no apparently good reason, perhaps the case is that you're thinking about it too much. The antidote maybe be just to accept it and keep moving forward - it's probably not as bad as you think it is? In the words of Marcus Aurelius: "we often suffer more in imagination than in reality". Don't over think it, actually, stop thinking about it if you can, and remember that even this too shall pass one day. Seldom are things that last forever. In fact, cherish what you can of the moment(s) because it likely won't last!

Failing Forward: it means that if at any time you fear of doing something - just say yes - and treat it as a learning lesson or opportunity. Framing is key here. The fact is that if you don't ever try, you will never learn the skills to be good at it and have the confidence to do that thing independently in the future. The counter argument is that you don't intend on acquiring the skills to be good at the thing you want to do. I.e. you don't find any future value in learning and acquiring the skills to be good at the thing you want to do - I.e. You're only going to do this one time.  E.g. I'm only going to go skydiving once in my life so I don't need to be good at skydiving, there's no use in acquiring those skills for the future. However, if you can see yourself doing the thing more than once it even very occasionally, the value in acquiring those skills (DIY) increases (e.g. cooking a good healthy meal).