The Art of the Good Life #24 : The Spiral of Self-pity

Another short one,

There are three unproductive ways that we can deal with negative events.

a) Do nothing.
b) Complain
c) Engage in Self-Pity

The book misses out the fourth point :

d) Engage is self destruction

The trick is not to engage in any of these activites. The suggestion not to engage in self-pity comes about because there is no end to the injustice that your ancestors faced that led to your fate today.

I just want to say a few words about Millenials and personal finance.

In 2008 and 2009, our generation faced possibly one of the worst recessions ever. One effect of this is the rise of the Hipster. No, not the kind of hipster that sells rainbow-themed foods at the Geylang Bazaar ( Now that's really hopeless shit !) but the kind of ironic, frugal child of the Great Recession that is forced to work in the gig economy and avoid seriously engaging in the financial markets.

So this Millenial Generation was burned so badly by the markets, they eschewed Wall Street and missed out on the greatest bull market post-recession. But it gets worse - they invented a whole new asset class called the crypto-currency and dived into it without proper asset allocation and diversification.

Some became very rich but the majority are stuck with paper losses as they hold for dear life into financial oblivion.

For the folks suffering huge losses this quarter, try to avoid self-pity, just pick yourself up and start studying finance seriously.

At least, unlike me, you still have your youth.