Have you ever sold a stock too soon or passed up an opportunity that went on to experience explosive growth?
I did.
I bought Tesla stocks back in April 2013 at USD50. Fast ride up. Held them till June 2013 and sold them at USD88 – nice 75% profit in less than 60 days.
Later I “knew” I should’ve bought more, but I didn’t.
Later I “knew” I should’ve held it longer, but I didn’t.
This kind of thinking is a mirage.
It’s pure fantasy.
Because the way you think things would’ve turned out is NOT the way they actually would’ve turned out.
How you imagine an experience is a theoretical exercise. It’s a mental simulation of your past.
But, how you live through that experience in real-time tends to produce very different results.
Do you know what actually would’ve happened had I bought 10 Bitcoin in 2020 at $8,000? I would’ve sold all of it when it hit $16,000 in late 2020. After all, why not lock in a $80,000 gain in a few short months? It would’ve been irresponsible for me not to sell it.
It’s easy to imagine how our financial lives would’ve turned out had we sold this or bought that. But, when you go through the motions of living it, you will see that things wouldn’t necessarily turn out as planned.
This thought experiment demonstrates how easy it is to fantasize about the money you could’ve made.
But, it applies to every facet of your life as well.
That job you should’ve taken?
That person you should’ve married?
They’re all decisions that you’ve selectively sterilized to fit your idea of perfection.
Unfortunately, in doing so, you’ve ripped away all of life’s rich complexity.
You’ve taken away the ups and downs & replaced them with a straight line.
But, as you know, this isn’t how life works.
Life is filled with challenges, risk, & volatility.
Yet, living in the past removes all of that.
It smooths the edges of existence until existence ceases to exist.
This is why you should never look down the road not taken.
Because that road never leads to where you think it should.
Sidenote: Do you know who owns the best-performing portfolios?
People who are dead & whose portfolio has not been touched for a long while (inheritance issues can take quite a while to sort out).