The stock market & utah driving
You have to have money to make money. And if you do have money, you should be using it to make more money. A while back I realized this and did a little bit of amatuer stock market investing to learn the game. I'm not sure if I have the risk tolerance to handle the stress that it brings. However, I realized I handle a similar type of stress every day. I call it "Driving in Utah." While I was driving around I developed this analogy for stock market trading:
The main roads have 3 or 4 lanes for me to choose from and way too many stop lights to get stuck behind a car who is going to go slow off the line. It's always a big decision for me as I approach an intersection which lane I should get into. And it's never what you expect. Sometimes the longest lines are the fastest, or you can get stuck behind a single slow car, and all the other lanes will just fly past you. Then you've got to decide whether to stick with your slow lane, which may suddenly pick up, or if you should try to jump into one of the faster lanes, which could slow down at anytime if someone has to turn or merge. The most frustrating is when your lane is going slow, so you switch. And then your new lane slows down and your old lane takes off, but you can't get back in because they are going too fast. Anyway, this is all like stock market trading. It's all completely unpredicatable. You might buy a stock or sell a stock at just the wrong time. One stock looks great so you jump in just in time to hit a red light or get stuck behind a grandma car. But oh well. You have to take risks once in a while. So there's my theory/analogy.