I was listening to Alan Watts rambling (and boy can he warble on) and in amongst the blah blah blah was a nugget of gold which I would like to share with you. I felt that this applies to trading because we all fall into this trap of setting a goal that once achieved, gives us permission to define ourselves as traders. What we dont realise is that it becomes un achievable because when your goal is 'out there' you miss what is happening right now.
Here is what he was saying (slightly edited and a bold highlight for a great quote):


What is the point? The existence of the physical universe is basically playful, there is no necessity for it. It doesn't have some destination that it ought to arrive at. It is best understood by analogy with music. Music as an art form and is essentially playful.

We say you play the piano you don't work a piano. This is why music differs from travel. when you travel you are trying to get somewhere. one doesn't make the end of a composition the goal of the composition. if that was so, the best conductors would be those who played fastest and who wrote only finales. And you wouldnt get people going to concerts just to hear one crashing end chord!

When dancing you don't aim at a particular spot in the room with the intention of arriving there. The whole point of the dancing is the moving around.

This is something brought by our education into our everyday lives. We've got a system of schooling which programs us with the wrong approach. It's all graded and what we do is we put the child into the corridor of this grade system where they lured through with end goals. First its kindergarten which is a great thing because when you finish that, you get into first grade and then to second grade and so on. And then you get out of grade school you go to high school. And your mind is revving up because the destination is coming. then you go to college and by Joe then you get into graduate school and when you're through with graduate school you go out to join the world.

Then you get a job where you're selling something and they've got that quota to make and you're working towards that, and all the time this destination is coming. That great success you're working for.

Then when you wake up one day about 40 years old you say my god I've arrived I'm there but the thing is you don't feel very different from what you always felt.

Look at the people who live to retire and put those savings away and then when they 65 they don't have any energy left. they're more or less impotent.

We just miss the point along the way. it is a musical thing and you are supposed to dance to the music

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing! I've always that way, just waiting to get to the next step. Yeesh. But what's the better way to do it if you're not going to be results oriented?

"All wretch and no vomit..."

Well...that's a metaphor if I'ever ever heard one.

Yep, ye olde dry heaves... worse than puking because you're going through the motions but without the payoff.

Great core workout though. Twist slightly while dry heaving and you target those obliques