Flow, purpose, action

Wow, this is so cool. I might take a few days off from the intention to study languages and maybe just read a chapter or so of the book I’m into before bed. Right now I am immersed in this amazing brokerage platform called Think or Swim by Ameritrade (which I think is now Charles Schwab, who probably bought it because this trading platofrm is so cool). It is like a game in pretty much every way with all sorts of pretty colours and charts and even a trade simulation that has all of the features of actual trading. I just feel like, I want to learn all about this stuff, and in the early stages I’m just taking in as much information as I can as fast as possible. I am learning so quickly. I made a call to Sink or Swim support because I couldn’t figure out how to switch from real trading to the simulation. I got through really quickly and he was so helpful. I don’t like talking to the bank but I like talking to customer service for investment sorts of things. He helped me figure out that I can choose Paper Money, their virtual trading simulation platform, before I log in. Ah, so that’s why I wasn’t finding it.

I have $200,000 of buying power. Just so I have something in my virtual portfolio while I figure out how to play with this, and so I could go through the process of implementing a trade, I purchased 15 virtual shares of Microsoft at market (which is what I bought the first time I invested in the stock market). I did not look at the chart. I just wanted to go through the motions of buying and it’s s simple. Just right click on the ticker and you’re given an option to buy. Then you can set limits, or whatever and voila, your order shows up in your Activity and Positions tab. If this is like a game to me and I get really into it and it gives me a sense of flow, why not spend my time doing this? It’s like finally having time to play games again except this one gives me really practical knowledge!

So my attention has temporarily shifted from wanting to study languages all day to wanting to learn as much about this platform and trading strategies and analysis in general as I can in the least amount of time. What I am really interested in is buying options, but that takes a lot more research or else I am practically guaranteed to lose money, and yet all that research becomes so accessible with this new toy! Still, I think I am going to spend the rest of the day learning as much as I can: choose a few stocks to look at, do some technical analysis, learn the features of the tool, learn more about options (and the language of options are often really fun: terms like, naked calls, moneyness, in the money, and the Greeks! There are a lot more interesting words in options trading that are escaping me right now. This is definitely something that gets me so in the flow, especially once I start learning the ropes and all the new information I am processing gets integrated a bit more. I have very little interest in investment news or companies or anything like that but I think this is an even more purposeful endeavour than learning the math required to beat the roulette wheel and a ideally whole lot less risky.

Pretty soon nobody is going to be able to tell me I’m not motivated! I am motivated, I just do not want to contract my time indefinitely to someone else, and they are not the same thing. I think my time doing this is much better spent. I am taking action, they are just not actions that will necessarily pay off right away. I am thinking of action a lot because that is a big concept in Japanese culture and in psychology. We think of a lot of Buddhist cultures as more about not doing than doing but Japan in particular has this emphasis on action which is really cool. Morita therapy is Japanese psychology that emphasises directing your emotions and intentions into something purposeful and that was so, so hard for me for so long. I read about it but kind of dismissed it in my mind, denying the importance of action, maybe because that was exactly what I needed to do. I just could not figure out how to take action on something purposeful.

More and more I think I am taking action on things that are purposeful but I have so much baggage and pain and fear and everything to let go of, and it was so overwhelming and confusing, I wanted so much to prove myself to people that I was sure totally discounted me even though when I really think about it what they think about me is irrelevant. What I was really trying to do is prove myself to myself. But the way I did that was throwing tantrums inside of myself, like, you don’t think I can do this???!!! Just watch me sit here and complain about how you all think I am capable of nothing! But that’s not taking action, and if only I had mastered my emotions and taken action at the same time, everything would be different right now.

A depression comes, a sadness, a meanness, and as the author of How Do You Live writes, just feel what you feel, no more no less. Feel what you feel, and if you feel sad, feel sad, but take some kind of purposeful action regardless of what you feel. It does not need to be a fighting, resisting kind of action, but action that comes out of acceptance of how things are. This is how things are. And I will act. I don’t know why it is soooo much easier for me lately to really feel the value of this approach to psychology but I wish so much I had taken it more seriously a long time ago. I still don’t know if I have ever done life right and part of me really wants consolation that I haven’t wasted my whole life but, I feel what I feel, and I’m at where I’m at, and at least now I am ready to take action.