The ramblings of a wannabe trader #13"A good trader can hope but should not expect!" - TulpenFieber
-What we Expected-
When I was a child most nights were long and hard. It was rare that a night was quiet. It was rare that you were able to sleep enough to feel like a human being the next day. But occasionally it did happen. Every once in a while, there were no fires to put out. Every once in a while you didn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night and go hide in the bunker. All of us hoped for such a night. Knowing how rare they occurred, we developed a saying.
"Expect the worst, hope for the best."
If we expected a quiet night but didn’t get it, the next day was much more painful. The night longer than usual. The problem wasn’t external. The problem was the psychological obstacles we had to overcome due to the unmet expectation.
-What it Means to Expect-
Expectation is a “rigid clinging to unreal belief.” Expectation is demanding exactly what we want to happen regardless of what is actually happening. Expectation is typically fixed and frozen. It is inflexible and rigid. It is unable to give or to bend or to change. Sadly, expectations are limited to our previous experiences. We are unable to expect something that we haven’t seen before. We cannot expect something better than what we know. The worst part of expectations is what happens when we hold onto them. They infect and overwhelm us, like a virus. They consume us like the plague. We are unable to give them up. We are unable to let go. Expectation influences our behavior and attitudes. It affects how we see the world. And then how we respond to it.
-What it Means to Hope-
Hope on the other hand is much different. While expectation is the assumption that something is actually going to happen, false or not, hope is the wish for something to happen. Hope is flexible. It is alive. It responds to all situations instead of battling against the ones that appear to be opposite. Hope admits reality, always acknowledging what is, but never resigning itself to what is. Hope allows other to grow. It desires good for another, but gives them room to change over time. Hope is not limited by previous experience. We can hope for more than what we know. We can hope for something better. Our imaginations and dreams influence our hopes.´Since hope admits uncertainty, it does not die when it goes unmet. A hope deferred does not kill the soul. We may need to adjust our hopes, but we can always keep hoping. Hope helps us to keep moving forward. Hope fills us with life.
-Unmet Expectations-
What happens when our expectations go unmet? Expectation is so rigid, we always respond negatively. We become angry. And then we make an attempt to control. We try to force our expectations. We manipulate. We bribe. We shame. Expectation does not let us accept what we do not want.
If we hold to a false expectation, a belief that it will be and should be different than it is, it will poison our perspective. It will negatively influence how we see a market and how we navigate it.
When it does not live up to our hopes, we can keep hoping for it because hope is flexible. We may adjust our hopes based on what we learned. We may even let go of our hopes realizing they were too unrealistic. But we can always hope for it.
As a wise man once said, “There is no such thing as a false hope.”
BTC is hope!
