More plans

It kind of excites me and terrifies me at the same time. Over the next few months I am going to work on creating at least two passive income streams but I think one of them is going to involve trading. I am scared and I suddenly feel really guilty because my grandfather taught me about the stock market and if I did not make a totally emotional sell when I really didn’t think my Microsoft stock had much upward momentum to it who knows how much money I would have right now but from my persoective right now it would be way more than enough. Somewhere between a hundred thousand and a million dollars, I think, but I don’t want to do the calculation and I don’t want to think about that.

I know people who trade in the markets experience shame at losses and bad decisions but this is intense and it is connected to so many things. I feel like a disappointment. I feel like crying and saying, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I feel like I have always known what to do but I have been too much of a coward to do it. And then after those shares were sold I waited for somebody to affirm me. I don’t know, but I just waited and waited and took no action, whereas if I had taken action now I would be seeing the fruits of that action. Anyway, if I play the markets now, and I have to battle against my emotions, it probably won’t be because I am investing more than I feel comfortable losing, but because I feel absolutely horrible about past mistakes, not only for what I have lost but because I feel like in making this mistake I let others down. I

I need to keep my emotions in check and a lot of that is the desire to recover what I could have had right away. Trying to turn the amount of money I have right now into a hundred thousand might be doable and less anxiety provoking, but turning it into a million, I get so anxious about how much time I have, though I have no doubt that if I put the effort into it, I can do it. A million is only 1000% of $100,000 after all. And it is not so much what I would do with a million dollars for myself so much that I have terrible fears of disappointing my grandfather, my mother… even though my mother never expected me to have a million dollars and she would be surprised if I did, I still feel like I have disappointed her or in my eyes I have anyway because of rhe decisions I have made and I don’t know how to emotionally process that.

I think I am starting to have hope that I can do something in the market to recover some of that but why didn’t I just do what I knew I could do years ago? I was afraid of money. I didn’t believe in myself. I was in sooo much pain. I don’t know and it’s never too late to start but as exciting as it is to decide I’m going to do this it is absolutely terrifying too and I am having waves of self loathing come up just seeing the current share price of that stock. My mindset might be horrible but this is like a martial art: can I master my emotions and play a rational game? I can get better at it. I can learn what my issues are and maybe start to heal them.

It is going to be hard, it is going to be scary, but this is something I have to face, and I *want* to face it, because beyond the fear and the disgust with myself and all those things this is really fun for me. It is fun in a way that can make me anxious and bring up so many fears.

I just need to moderate myself, spend a few months reading whatever I can get my hands on before I actually jump into the markets. Certainly don’t jump in right away because that would be the most emotional decision I could make. If I devote my time to learning about this as much as I can, hopefully the initial wave of excitement that is coupled with so much fear and anxiety will balance itself ny the time I am ready to take action. That is so much of my regret: soending so long just waiting and waiting and not taking action, on this ir anything, really, and I don’t know if anyone can help me feel better about it.

I am scared at the moment and anxious that I feel like I don’t have enough time to study it because I have already wasted too much time. When I learn about it, it beings up all the emotions, and I kind of want to run away, but in a way learning about this game also makes me feel alive, and it feels like the right path. It is something I can develop mastery in, and play with numbers and math, and whatever effect it has on my portfolio, it feels like the right thing to pursue. The thing to do is taken action but it makes me feel so guilty how much time I have spent not taking any action at all. I like the idea that I read that, when you are starting, have a mindset where it has nothing to do with the money at all. You’re not trying to make money, you’re… playing a game, maybe, but a really serious game! Just focus on making the right trades, not the money. If I make it not about the money but about mastering a skill and doing my best at playing the game… well, ai don’t know yet. I felt really empowered today when I realized this is something I *do* want to invest time into but now I feel scared like I should have done it so long ago and… all my sense of disappointment comes up for me. Yet this is a huge area where I *can* work through my sense of disempowerment and find empowerment: just by reading this stuff ai am processing a whole lot of stuff. Partnif me welcomes the emotional stuff that comes up because this is a game of learning
to master that.

I have lots of learning to do but I intuitively know that this is something Incan figure out and do well and have a really good time with it. Part of me is wondering, well, what is the point, but what is the point if anything. Just take action, and if I am taking action in my life, maybe this is exactly what I need to do…