If this is like, established fact or something...I did not know this, and I understand why the hypothetical person was also unaware of this.
I have heard this advice repeatedly, but I guess it is quite easy to miss it. People probably either don’t know it, or consider it too obvious to mention. (And a few people benefit from you not knowing the advice, so they can profit from your fear, advising you to sell what you have and buy something else, charging you a commission, and you are so thankful that someone observes these changes 24⁄7 for you.)
On the other hand, many people seem unable to follow this advice even if they hear it. Like, a few of my colleagues who bought Bitcoins. Every day there were like “look, it’s $10 higher, we made a profit!” or “oh, it’s $10 lower, this sucks!”, and I was like “guys, calm down, it’s not important what happens in a day, the only thing that matters is what happens over years” and tried to explain that the $10 is not even worth the amount of stress they feel… and that the only thing they need to do is to simply stop watching the news, return a year later, with certain probability they will lose everything (if this is not acceptable for you, do not invest), and with certain probability they will make a nontrivial profit.
I guess following this advice is emotionally difficult. About a month later, some colleagues said they sold the Bitcoins, because it was “too stressful” for them to think about it. Seems like “simply do not think about it” is a difficult skill, almost like meditation. On the positive side, if you succeed to do it for a few weeks, it becomes much easier, because now you are used to the situation and it is no longer exciting. (I have a similar experience with Facebook and other websites: the longer you are without them, the less you miss them.)
I have heard this advice repeatedly, but I guess it is quite easy to miss it. People probably either don’t know it, or consider it too obvious to mention. (And a few people benefit from you not knowing the advice, so they can profit from your fear, advising you to sell what you have and buy something else, charging you a commission, and you are so thankful that someone observes these changes 24⁄7 for you.)
On the other hand, many people seem unable to follow this advice even if they hear it. Like, a few of my colleagues who bought Bitcoins. Every day there were like “look, it’s $10 higher, we made a profit!” or “oh, it’s $10 lower, this sucks!”, and I was like “guys, calm down, it’s not important what happens in a day, the only thing that matters is what happens over years” and tried to explain that the $10 is not even worth the amount of stress they feel… and that the only thing they need to do is to simply stop watching the news, return a year later, with certain probability they will lose everything (if this is not acceptable for you, do not invest), and with certain probability they will make a nontrivial profit.
I guess following this advice is emotionally difficult. About a month later, some colleagues said they sold the Bitcoins, because it was “too stressful” for them to think about it. Seems like “simply do not think about it” is a difficult skill, almost like meditation. On the positive side, if you succeed to do it for a few weeks, it becomes much easier, because now you are used to the situation and it is no longer exciting. (I have a similar experience with Facebook and other websites: the longer you are without them, the less you miss them.)