my journal 3

[Yamato]

I just spent too much time trying to pretend I was perfect.

Now my failures are so huge that I can't my eyes closed anymore.

It is time for me to acknowledge reality.

I am far from being perfect.

My father raised me with a military nazi upbringing. That's why I've been so interested in Hitler and Nazism: we shared the same intolerance towards (different) groups of people, and we thought WE were perfect instead, because god had chosen us to be that way.

I was brought up to think I was the best and taught to despise laziness and stupidity and superficiality.

The only way to be this way without disliking yourself was to think you were perfect, while trying your best to be perfect, to avoid things you weren't good at, and to despise all those who displayed the deficiencies. Of course in my case it was just about intellectual laziness rather than being Aryan or Jewish. But the Nazis, too, other than their little extermination of minorities problem, were very worried about making people work hard, physically and intellectually.

So, anyway, where you weren't the best, you avoided the subject so you wouldn't feel bad about not being the best (such as playing soccer for example) or you ignored the negative feedback.

But the problem with trading is that you cannot ignore unprofitability. Trading forces you to face the results of your flaws, just as an excel sheet shows negative results with a minus in front of the final sum.

So the lesson from this is to stop being a nazi, start acknowledging my own deficiencies and correcting what I can.

Nazism only leads to destruction. In other words, the endless search for perfection, the ambition to be perfect and the hate and scorn for those we consider imperfect, which in my case are 95% of people... this leads to first of all ignoring my own deficiencies, and this in turn leads to trading unprofitability. And I can't afford this anymore.

So, let's try to improve and first of all let's stop being a nazi, because that's what nazism ultimately is: the assumption that you're perfect and the others suck. And the intolerance for the others, which in my case merely consists of avoiding them.

Don't get me wrong: these people will still suck and be despicable, but this should not lead me to think that I am perfect. And also I should not judge people badly, because this in turn will make me intolerant to my own imperfections and failure, and in turn cause me to deny them. So being aware of qualities and deficiencies should not be equivalent to developing a phobia and allergies for deficiencies.

Granted, the nazis got quite good at pretty much everything they were doing, but hitler wasn't perfect, and he paid dearly for his mistakes and his arrogance. In the same way, with all my efficiency, all these years I kept repeating the same money management mistakes, because I kept assuming I was special and that in the end I would triumph because I was infallible.

In short, I have been a peaceful intellectual nazi.

Now the key is not to become an idiot, like all these people are.

The key is to become neutral in judgment towards deficiencies. To stop being intolerant. Sure, let's avoid all the problems and flaws in ourselves and in others, but let's not build up an intolerance in ourselves so strong that:
1) I can't sleep, wake up in rage, if I hear the neighbor child cough and call his mom: it just would make the problem bigger
2) can't sleep/rest, even when necessary and wanted, because of your urge to learn something
3) I can't close a losing trade, because in denial about its outcome, because the truth of having been wrong hurts too much, and because I can only bear the thought of "I wasn't right immediately, but in the long run I will be right, so let's hold this position".

I am not blessed by the gods, and this perfectionist thinking only brought me to blowing out account after account, sometimes even by closing the platform and not opening it again for 2 months, until the futures expired. Total denial.

Let's stop being an intolerant nazi towards my own deficiencies.

Let us learn to tolerate deficiencies, so that I can acknowledge my own.

Let's accept imperfection so that we can admit our own imperfection and work on it.

Perfection is not possible, but improving is possible, and the first step is to acknowledge that you are not perfect.

So, once again:
1) learn to tolerate imperfection
2) acknowledge your own
3) fix what you can

The reason it is so hard and that you tend so much to be the way you have been, as a perfectionist, is that the quest for perfection is such that, seeing the desolation that surrounds you, you end up thinking you are perfect (given that the others are so bad usually), and in turn you become unable to acknowledge your limits and work on them.

Just because everyone around is so bad, that doesn't make you perfect. In the same way I think that Hitler screwed up. Seeing so much disorganization, laziness, indecision in the countries around Germany, he thought he had the world in his hands, and that he couldn't fail. Then when he did fail, he went into denial. Just like me.

And his intolerance is just as clearly exemplified: it wasn't merely about hating Jews and maybe he might have been right, too, about their organizing a conspiracy for world domination. This could very well be the case.

At any rate, whether wrong or right, his hate for jews should not make us forget that Hitler, in his quest for perfection, decided that society had to kill gypsies, homosexuals, and handicapped people.

But this, amazingly, also means that if you went to ww1 and, as a consequence of combat stress, developed some symptoms of "Shell Shock", then you'd be suppressed as well.

So ultimately his quest for perfection did not make any sense because he killed the very people he was asking to fight for Germany's expansion: "Go fight for Germany, but if you get injured, we might put you to sleep".

On top of these, he kicked out all the jews who went on to build the atom bomb, which might have been used on Germany as well, had things gone further.

So, knowing where this quest for perfection leads, which is irrationality, we should be very moderate in our own quest for perfection. To avoid these awful irrational side-effects.

The number of 80.000 British shell shock victims, a rarely questioned number

This was the case of Andreas Bueckle:
http://www.swr.de/swr2/stolperstein...6/nid=12117596/did=12421030/hxug39/index.html

Andreas Bückle (*17.11.1889), ein Lehrer von der Schwäbischen Alb, wurde nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg schwer traumatisiert aus französischer Kriegsgefangenschaft entlassen. Danach erlitt er eine Odyssee durch verschiedene württembergische Heilanstalten. Zuletzt wurde er von der Heilanstalt Zwiefalten nach Grafeneck gebracht und dort am 5. August 1940 als "lebensunwertes Leben" vergast.

You go to war, you fight for Germany, then they gas you because you become shell-shocked in the war.

Now this clearly, even by nazi standards, doesn't make any sense.



---

 

[Yamato]

great summary with practical examples

Let's recapitulate my problems with as many practicals examples as I can find from my daily life. Of course it is always the same problem, described from different points of view.

1) Inability to tolerate imperfection
haircut: if a barber does a mistake on my haircut, I keep worrying about it for days and days and develop anger at the barber and I keep touching the part where the hair was cut wrong.
mistakes by colleagues at work: i strongly despise and even hate those who make mistakes in their work even if the consequences do not affect my own work
people throwing garbage in the streets: strong anger towards people not respecting the rules I respect.
closing a losing trade: my own mistake but I can't close it because I'd be admitting I am not perfect, which is my illusion

2) getting offended and vengefulness
guy at work making noise: this guy makes noise and I give him dirty looks all day long because he's not supposed to make noise, especially his loud sneezing and yawning. I take offense personally at a disgusting behavior that he directs at the whole room, with 8 people in it. I regularly wish him death and to never return from his holidays.
anger and vengefulness towards everyone for years: no matter how trivial the comment, such as a cousin saying that I am not a fast swimmer (I remembered that comment for years and didn't want to meet the guy ever again)
people looking at me in the street or at a restaurant: I get mad, stare back, staring contests... endless, ever since being a boy.
getting offended with strangers on the web: I get wounded and upset even if I get offended by a stranger on the web. Even if I get called gay and I am not gay or if someone thinks something else that is not true and they don't know me at all. I get so offended that I remember the incident for weeks, and wish the guy death.
playing risk online: I get mad for someone not completing the game or not playing fairly or attacking me and destroying my armies. I remember these things for weeks. I tend to focus on whatever specific task I am on at a given moment, and invest everything on it, all my emotions and attention and efforts. Then if it goes wrong, I get upset, not at myself, not at randomness, but at whoever or whatever seems to have caused my plans to not be implemented as planned. This anger is the same in trading, where I get mad at the markets, as if they were plotting against me.

As I said, extreme perfectionism and extreme pride sum up very well my trading problem, and my living problem altogether. Or rather: my social problem.

With trading there is no society involved, but I get mad at the markets just as well, for causing my trades to be imperfect. I almost expect my discretionary trades to be started long at bottom and to be closed at the exact top. I expect perfection of myself and I get sore at the market for denying it to me, especially after a winning streak. I even get mad while using the trading simulator, without any money involved.

 

[Benj1981]

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

GTTY.

 

[Yamato]

Thanks for the feedback.

Good summary. Although I don't believe in god and I don't think I need courage, because once I have the wisdom to know what I have to do, I'll just do it for my own self-interest.

 

[Yamato]

We keep hearing in the news about these people executed in Syria, and stuff, and this is not a surprise to me. Why? Because I've been studying world war 2 for months.

The beheadings? Common practice among the Japanese. And now we consider the Japanese as one of the most advanced cultures.

The killings? The "victory or death" thinking? This also belonged to the Japanese, and the Germans. Once again, one o the most advanced cultures today.

The Americans until very recently have killed and experimenting weapons on innocent civilians in Iraq (let alone Hiroshima) - of course they're the winners so this is all covered up and just barely shows on the web, if you do a little search you will even find videos about this.

So, what is this big deal about the beheadings and all the kilings? The Americans are maybe less graphic about their killings but they've been killing until very recently. So the killing by the Muslims should be ok by them.

I would say that, considering all the Western countries have been doing in the world for the last 100 years, we should allow the Muslims to kill at the very least one million people however they like.

 

[Yamato]

 

[Yamato]

I've identified a new dimension of my problem, and one more urge.

We have to see the problem in terms of urges to be eradicated (through habit or similar) rather than to be suppressed, because i have learned that self-discipline can only go so far and fails under stress. In other words you cannot control yourself beyond a given point, but if you get rid of some of your characteristics through habit or similar, then you don't have to use that self-discipline anymore. In other words, that urge has to disappear from your life, for good.

These urges are harmful anyway, and I don't think there is any good in them. Here they are, here's my check-list to work on:

all URGES I need to eradicate for good from my mind (as a good habit) rather than constantly repress through self-discipline (self-discipline runs out and, under pressure, it doesn't work):

1) urge to control everything up to the last detail
2) urge to get even with those (people or things) which have wronged by not acting according to my plans and expectations
3) urge to fight boredom by trading or other harmful activities
4) urge to break all rules (even my own) out of rebelliousness - this shows why I need to eradicate these urges rather than repress them: because sooner or later self-discipline fails
5) urge to impress people (including myself)
6) unidentified urge related to restlessness/delusional state that is triggered by having a large capital

The new one I have added is the urge to impress people and myself. I think that is one of the culprits for my wanting out overdo it once I had gotten to about 50k.

I wanted to do something to be remembered, such as taking it to 100k, quickly, and then, when I saw that wasn't happening, I felt the urge to get even with GBL, which had stopped me.

Recap of 3 main evil urges:
1) urge to be right and perfect and control everything
2) urge to get even when something stops me from doing it
3) urge to impress

 

[Yamato]

Here's some quotes from a related link (cfr. previous post):
http://everydaybright.com/2011/09/5-overachiever-mistakes/

"Here are the 5 biggest mistakes I see overachievers making, and how to overcome them.

1. The need to please
"...Reframe: We tend to think the only way to impress people is through..."

2. Afraid of failure
"Of course, the need to please also translates into a fear of failure more generally, leading to risk-adverse decision making. As Everyday Bright reader Tricia Best-Hurtubise says in the Facebook discussion: "As an ex-perfectionist, I would also take the “safe” job, the “sure” bet… the things I knew that I could do. The only way I would try something different is if I could reconcile it to something I already knew–that would give me the confidence to try it."...

3...

4...

5. Too impatient
The real secret is that over-achievers have trained themselves for efficiency rather than results..."

 

[Yamato]

More good quotes, this time dead on target, from:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/why-perfectionism-is-ruin_n_4212069.html
14 Signs Your Perfectionism Has Gotten Out Of Control

1. You've always been eager to please.
...
4. You're highly critical of others.
Being judgmental toward others is a common psychological defense mechanism: we reject in others what we can't accept in ourselves. And for perfectionists, there can be a lot to reject. Perfectionists are highly discriminating, and few are beyond the reach of their critical eye.

5. You go big or go home.
Many perfectionists struggle with black-and-white thinking -- you're a success one moment and a failure the next, based on your lastest accomplishment or failure -- and they do things in extremes. If you have perfectionist tendencies, you'll probably only throw yourself into a new project or task if you know there's a good chance you can succeed -- and if there's a risk of failure, you'll likely avoid it altogether. Studies have found perfectionists to be risk-averse, which can inhibit innovation and creativity.

For perfectionists, life is an all or nothing game. When a perfectionist sets her mind to something, her powerful drive and ambition can lead her to stop at nothing to accomplish that goal.

...

7. You know there's no use crying over spilt milk... but you do anyway.

Whether it's burning the cookies or being five minutes late for a meeting, the perfection-seeking tend to obsess over every little mistake. This can add up to a whole lot of meltdowns, existential crises, and grown-up temper tantrums. When your main focus is on failure and you're driven by the desire to avoid it at all costs, even the smallest infraction is evidence for a grand thesis of personal failure.

"Lacking a deep and consistent source of self-esteem, failures hit especially hard for perfectionists, and may lead to long bouts of depression and withdrawal in some individuals," writes Springer.

8. You take everything personally.

Because they take every setback and criticism personally, perfectionists tend to be less resilient than others. Rather than bouncing back from challenges and mistakes, the perfectionist is beaten down by them, taking every misstep as evidence for the truth of their deepest, continually plaguing fear: "I'm not good enough."

9. ... And you get really defensive when criticized.

You might be able to pick out a perfectionist in conversation when they jump to defend themselves at even the slightest hint of a criticism. In an effort to preserve their fragile self-image and the way they appear to others, a perfectionist tries to take control by defending themselves against any threat -- even when no defense is needed.

10. You're never quite "there yet."

Because perfection is, of course, an impossible pursuit, perfectionists tend to have the perpetual feeling that they're not quite there yet.

...

12. You take pleasure in someone else’s failure, even though it has nothing to do with you.

Misery loves company, and perfectionists -- who spend a lot of time and energy thinking and worrying about their own failure -- can find relief and even pleasure in others' challenges. For a moment, taking pleasure in someone else's shortcomings might make you feel better about yourself, but in the long term, it only reinforces the kind of competitive and judgmental thinking that perfectionists thrive on.

...

 

[Yamato]

I forgot the first quote:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/why-perfectionism-is-ruin_n_4212069.html

1. You've always been eager to please.
Perfectionism often starts in childhood. At a young age, we're told to reach for the stars -- parents and teachers encourage their children to become high achievers and give them gold stars for work well done (and in some cases, punishing them for failing to measure up). Perfectionists learn early on to live by the words "I achieve, therefore I am" -- and nothing thrills them quite like impressing others (or themselves) with their performance.

Unfortunately, chasing those straight A's -- in school, work and life -- can lead to a lifetime of frustration and self-doubt.

 

[Yamato]

More good quotes, this time from:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/why-being-a-perfectionist-may-not-be-so-perfect.html
Why Being A Perfectionist May Not Be So Perfect

However, as ironic as it might sound, perfectionism at its extreme prevents us from being our best.

How so? Here are some examples:

We become less efficient. Even when we are done with a task, we linger on to find new things to improve on. This lingering process starts off as 10 minutes, then extends to 30 minutes, then to an hour, and more. We spend way more time on a task than required.
We become less effective. We do little things because they seem like a “good addition”, without consciously thinking whether they’re really necessary. Sometimes, not only do the additions add no value, they might even ruin things. For example, overcluttering a presentation with unneeded details. Jam-packing a blog layout with too many things.
We procrastinate, as we wait for a “perfect” moment. Our desire to “perfect” everything makes us overcomplicate a project. What’s actually a simple task may get blown out of proportion, to the extent it becomes subconsciously intimidating. This makes us procrastinate on it, waiting for the ever “perfect” moment before we get to it. This “perfect” moment never strikes until it is too late.
We miss the bigger picture. We are too hung up over details that we forget about the bigger picture and the end vision. It’s not uncommon to see better jobs done in pruning the trees than growing for the forest.
We fuss over unfounded problems. We anticipate problems before they crop up, and come up with solutions to address these problems. It becomes an obsession to pre-empt problems. As it turns out, most of these problems either never do surface or they don’t matter that much.
However, the problem isn’t perfectionism. Well, not the normal form of perfectionism anyway. Perfectionism helps us to continuously aim for higher standards and become better. It’s a good thing.

The problem is when the quest for perfectionism turns into an obsession – so much so that the perfectionist becomes neurotic over gaining “perfection” and refuses to accept anything less than perfect. In the process, he misses the whole point altogether. Such perfectionists can be known as “maladaptive perfectionists”.

 

[Yamato]

more quotes:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200802/pitfalls-perfectionism

No one knows this better than psychologist Randy O. Frost, a professor at Smith College. His research over the past two decades has helped define the dimensions of perfectionism. This, he's found, is what perfectionism sounds like:

"If someone does a task at work or school better than me, then I feel like I failed the whole task."

"Other people seem to accept lower standards from themselves than I do."

"My parents want me to be the best at everything."

"As a child, I was punished for doing things imperfectly."

"I tend to get behind in my work because I repeat things over and over."

"Neatness is very important to me."

Each statement captures a facet of perfectionism:

Concern over mistakes: Perfectionists tend to interpret mistakes as equivalent to failure and to believe they will lose the respect of others following failure.

High personal standards: Perfectionists don't just set very high standards but place excessive importance on those standards for self-evaluation.

Parental expectations: Perfectionists tend to believe their parents set very high goals for them.

Parental criticism: Perfectionists perceive that their parents are (or were) overly critical.

Doubting actions: Perfectionists doubt their ability to accomplish tasks.

Organization: Perfectionists tend to emphasize order.

 

[darktone]

Its all in your head travis, well done for choosing to explore.

 

[Yamato]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Yamato]

Why Hitler Lost the War: German Strategic Mistakes in WWII

 

[Yamato]

More good quotes, this time from:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/why-being-a-perfectionist-may-not-be-so-perfect.html
Why Being A Perfectionist May Not Be So Perfect

However, as ironic as it might sound, perfectionism at its extreme prevents us from being our best.

How so? Here are some examples:

We become less efficient. Even when we are done with a task, we linger on to find new things to improve on. This lingering process starts off as 10 minutes, then extends to 30 minutes, then to an hour, and more. We spend way more time on a task than required.
We become less effective. We do little things because they seem like a “good addition”, without consciously thinking whether they’re really necessary. Sometimes, not only do the additions add no value, they might even ruin things. For example, overcluttering a presentation with unneeded details. Jam-packing a blog layout with too many things.
We procrastinate, as we wait for a “perfect” moment. Our desire to “perfect” everything makes us overcomplicate a project. What’s actually a simple task may get blown out of proportion, to the extent it becomes subconsciously intimidating. This makes us procrastinate on it, waiting for the ever “perfect” moment before we get to it. This “perfect” moment never strikes until it is too late.
We miss the bigger picture. We are too hung up over details that we forget about the bigger picture and the end vision. It’s not uncommon to see better jobs done in pruning the trees than growing for the forest.
We fuss over unfounded problems. We anticipate problems before they crop up, and come up with solutions to address these problems. It becomes an obsession to pre-empt problems. As it turns out, most of these problems either never do surface or they don’t matter that much.
However, the problem isn’t perfectionism. Well, not the normal form of perfectionism anyway. Perfectionism helps us to continuously aim for higher standards and become better. It’s a good thing.

The problem is when the quest for perfectionism turns into an obsession – so much so that the perfectionist becomes neurotic over gaining “perfection” and refuses to accept anything less than perfect. In the process, he misses the whole point altogether. Such perfectionists can be known as “maladaptive perfectionists”.

"The problem is when the quest for perfectionism turns into an obsession – so much so that the perfectionist becomes neurotic over gaining “perfection” and refuses to accept anything less than perfect. In the process, he misses the whole point altogether. Such perfectionists can be known as “maladaptive perfectionists”."

I told you so. Hitler and I were both "maladaptive perfectionists", people who were successful for a while, but whose lives turned into disaster because of their obsession with perfection. Instead of getting finished with England, which he was about to conquer, he at once went after the jews and russians, and I went after the Bund, despite having enough capital to just sit on it without taking any further risks.

We both blew it.

 

[Yamato]

I just spent too much time trying to pretend I was perfect.

Now my failures are so huge that I can't my eyes closed anymore.

It is time for me to acknowledge reality.

I am far from being perfect.

My father raised me with a military nazi upbringing. That's why I've been so interested in Hitler and Nazism: we shared the same intolerance towards (different) groups of people, and we thought WE were perfect instead, because god had chosen us to be that way.

I was brought up to think I was the best and taught to despise laziness and stupidity and superficiality.

The only way to be this way without disliking yourself was to think you were perfect, while trying your best to be perfect, to avoid things you weren't good at, and to despise all those who displayed the deficiencies. Of course in my case it was just about intellectual laziness rather than being Aryan or Jewish. But the Nazis, too, other than their little extermination of minorities problem, were very worried about making people work hard, physically and intellectually.

So, anyway, where you weren't the best, you avoided the subject so you wouldn't feel bad about not being the best (such as playing soccer for example) or you ignored the negative feedback.

But the problem with trading is that you cannot ignore unprofitability. Trading forces you to face the results of your flaws, just as an excel sheet shows negative results with a minus in front of the final sum.

So the lesson from this is to stop being a nazi, start acknowledging my own deficiencies and correcting what I can.

Nazism only leads to destruction. In other words, the endless search for perfection, the ambition to be perfect and the hate and scorn for those we consider imperfect, which in my case are 95% of people... this leads to first of all ignoring my own deficiencies, and this in turn leads to trading unprofitability. And I can't afford this anymore.

So, let's try to improve and first of all let's stop being a nazi, because that's what nazism ultimately is: the assumption that you're perfect and the others suck. And the intolerance for the others, which in my case merely consists of avoiding them.

Don't get me wrong: these people will still suck and be despicable, but this should not lead me to think that I am perfect. And also I should not judge people badly, because this in turn will make me intolerant to my own imperfections and failure, and in turn cause me to deny them. So being aware of qualities and deficiencies should not be equivalent to developing a phobia and allergies for deficiencies.

Granted, the nazis got quite good at pretty much everything they were doing, but hitler wasn't perfect, and he paid dearly for his mistakes and his arrogance. In the same way, with all my efficiency, all these years I kept repeating the same money management mistakes, because I kept assuming I was special and that in the end I would triumph because I was infallible.

In short, I have been a peaceful intellectual nazi.

Now the key is not to become an idiot, like all these people are.

The key is to become neutral in judgment towards deficiencies. To stop being intolerant. Sure, let's avoid all the problems and flaws in ourselves and in others, but let's not build up an intolerance in ourselves so strong that:
1) I can't sleep, wake up in rage, if I hear the neighbor child cough and call his mom: it just would make the problem bigger
2) can't sleep/rest, even when necessary and wanted, because of your urge to learn something
3) I can't close a losing trade, because in denial about its outcome, because the truth of having been wrong hurts too much, and because I can only bear the thought of "I wasn't right immediately, but in the long run I will be right, so let's hold this position".

I am not blessed by the gods, and this perfectionist thinking only brought me to blowing out account after account, sometimes even by closing the platform and not opening it again for 2 months, until the futures expired. Total denial.

Let's stop being an intolerant nazi towards my own deficiencies.

Let us learn to tolerate deficiencies, so that I can acknowledge my own.

Let's accept imperfection so that we can admit our own imperfection and work on it.

Perfection is not possible, but improving is possible, and the first step is to acknowledge that you are not perfect.

So, once again:
1) learn to tolerate imperfection
2) acknowledge your own
3) fix what you can

The reason it is so hard and that you tend so much to be the way you have been, as a perfectionist, is that the quest for perfection is such that, seeing the desolation that surrounds you, you end up thinking you are perfect (given that the others are so bad usually), and in turn you become unable to acknowledge your limits and work on them.

Just because everyone around is so bad, that doesn't make you perfect. In the same way I think that Hitler screwed up. Seeing so much disorganization, laziness, indecision in the countries around Germany, he thought he had the world in his hands, and that he couldn't fail. Then when he did fail, he went into denial. Just like me.

And his intolerance is just as clearly exemplified: it wasn't merely about hating Jews and maybe he might have been right, too, about their organizing a conspiracy for world domination. This could very well be the case.

At any rate, whether wrong or right, his hate for jews should not make us forget that Hitler, in his quest for perfection, decided that society had to kill gypsies, homosexuals, and handicapped people.

But this, amazingly, also means that if you went to ww1 and, as a consequence of combat stress, developed some symptoms of "Shell Shock", then you'd be suppressed as well.

So ultimately his quest for perfection did not make any sense because he killed the very people he was asking to fight for Germany's expansion: "Go fight for Germany, but if you get injured, we might put you to sleep".

On top of these, he kicked out all the jews who went on to build the atom bomb, which might have been used on Germany as well, had things gone further.

So, knowing where this quest for perfection leads, which is irrationality, we should be very moderate in our own quest for perfection. To avoid these awful irrational side-effects.

The number of 80.000 British shell shock victims, a rarely questioned number

This was the case of Andreas Bueckle:
http://www.swr.de/swr2/stolperstein...6/nid=12117596/did=12421030/hxug39/index.html

You go to war, you fight for Germany, then they gas you because you become shell-shocked in the war.

Now this clearly, even by nazi standards, doesn't make any sense.

View attachment 178810

---

minute 30 to 34, he says exactly what I said about kicking out the jews (big mistake):

minute 33:
"our german scientists were cleverer than their german scientists"

He repeats throughout his lecture that Hitler didn't win because he let ideology prevail over strategy.

It is an excellent lecture.

I feel he is talking about me, as well. In my quest for perfection, I don't look at results, but I look at some irrational principles, that cause me to lose: never lose a trade, never quit a position... sounds like this academic when he is saying that Hitler didn't allow his generals to ever withdraw.

Hitler, too, like me did what felt good rather than what worked. He had a lot of resources, morals, obedience, ideals motivated the Germans and the Germans were strong. But in the end he blew it all.

In the same way I am very motivated and hard working. But my strategy is wrong. And it is wrong because I don't allow myself to see reality and assess my results, given I must be perfect, and that I can't be making mistakes.

Just like Hitler I could not accept a defeat and implement a tactical withdrawal (equivalent to a stoploss), and just like Hitler and the Nazis, it's either all or nothing, and therefore "victory or death", which in my case is "double or nothing".

 

[Yamato]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfectionism_(psychology)

Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person's striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations.[1][2] It is best conceptualized as a multidimensional characteristic, as psychologists agree that there are many positive and negative aspects.[3] In its maladaptive form, perfectionism drives people to attempt to achieve an unattainable ideal, and their adaptive perfectionism can sometimes motivate them to reach their goals. In the end, they derive pleasure from doing so. When perfectionists do not reach their goals, they often fall into depression.

Holy cow, it describes me perfectly.

Normal vs. neurotic perfectionists[edit]
Hamachek was one of the first psychologists to argue for two distinct types of perfectionism, classifying people as normal perfectionists or neurotic perfectionists. Normal perfectionists pursue perfection without compromising their self-esteem, and derive pleasure from their efforts. Neurotic perfectionists strive for unrealistic goals and consistently feel dissatisfied when they cannot reach them.[5] Today researchers largely agree that these two basic types of perfectionism are distinct.[6] They have been labeled differently, and are sometimes referred to as positive striving and maladaptive evaluation concerns, active and passive perfectionism, positive and negative perfectionism, and adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism.[7] Although there is a general perfectionism that affects all realms of life, some researchers contend that levels of perfectionism are significantly different across different domains (i.e. work, academic, sport, interpersonal relationships, home life).[3]

This is it.

On May 5th, when I starting bringing my 47k in 3 months to less than 3k, then I discovered that I am sick, and my sickness is precisely called "maladaptive perfectionism". I have 100% of the characteristics, according to every single website I have browsed.

I want to switch from the maladaptive to the adaptive type of perfectionism.

I want to know the difference of perfection still, and not become a messy slob. But I want to go after precision and order only when it's worth it, and not obsessively, no matter what.

Furthermore, I must learn to forgive myself for not going after perfection when it is not necessary and when it is not possible.

For example, in trading. Perfection would be desirable: never losing on a trade. But it is not possible.

So I must learn to forgive myself for not achieving perfection. Because my anger (which I direct at the future that made me lose) always causes me to destroy all my work.

It is going to be as simple as this: turning from a maladaptive perfectionist (which only recently I realized I am) to an adaptive one.

That's all I have to do.

Trading is a wonderful thing, because it translates every psychological aspect of your mind into a financial balance, and assigns a profitability factor to it.

I have a lot of positive features but I have these few negative features that keep multiplying all my positive features by zero returning a zero product.

This is just in trading. It would not be the same in other fields.

If I were building a house and placed one brick in the wrong spot, I would not destroy the house, because the house is not as sensitive as futures trading.

My perfectionism would not cause the house the crumble.

Because I would not get so upset in the process as to destroy it. And even if I got upset, I would not destroy it, because it takes a lot to destroy a house.

But with trading it is as if you were building a castle of cards. You call it that?

Well, basically, you're a control freak, building a castle of cards, and you don't realize that your neurosis and anger are the only things that are going to destroy it.

It's odd. Had I left my account alone, nothing would have happened to it.

It's hard to explain, but now I have understood the problem. Or rather, a little better than I had understood it before.

Before this last experience, I wrote here several times that once i reach a high capital something happens to me that makes me lose it all.

Now I know what it is.

My ambition grows.

My expectation grows.

Something goes wrong, like a loss of 500 dollars.

Being a perfectionist, I get mad, and I react the wrong way. And that causes me to blow out the account.

I had understood a while ago that I was doing something wrong, but I hadn't correctly assessed what the cause was, and so I did not know how to defend myself from it.

The cause is precisely all this anger in myself coming from my perfectionism.

To prevent the problem, I can't wait until I lose and the anger arises, because then it is too late.

So forget this story of being self-disciplined, because it's powerless against the anger I feel when I lose.

I need to intervene sooner by removing from my mind for good, this maladaptive perfectionism that leads me to demand perfection, whether it's possible or not, and whether it is necessary or not.

I need to work on this before it arises. It must never arise again.

I need to practice situations where people wrong me, and make things go differently than my expectations and desires and I need to learn to never get mad, neither outside nor inside.

 

[Yamato]

 

[Yamato]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Hartmann#Prisoner_of_war

After his capture, the U.S. Army handed Hartmann, his pilots, and ground crew over to the Soviet Union on 24 May, where he was imprisoned in accordance with the Yalta Agreements, which stated that airmen and soldiers fighting Soviet forces had to surrender directly to them.

Hartmann and his unit were led by the Americans to a large open-air compound to await the transfer. The number of prisoners grew to 50,000. Living conditions deteriorated, and some American guards turned "a blind eye" to escapes. In some cases, they assisted by providing food and maps.[41]

Soon after being handed over to the Soviet armed forces, Hartmann experienced the following:

The first thing the Russians did was to separate the German women and girls from the men. What followed was a brutal orgy of rape and debauchery by Red Army soldiers. When the greatly outnumbered Americans tried to intervene, the Russians charged towards them firing into the air and threatening to kill them if they interfered. The raping continued throughout the night. The next day a Russian General arrived at the encampment and immediately ordered a cessation ... Later when a few Russians violated the order again and assaulted a German girl, she was asked to identify them from a lineup. There were no formalities, no court martial. The guilty parties were immediately hanged in front of all their comrades. The point was made.[40]

After continuous failed attempts by the Soviets to break him, Hartmann was falsely charged with war crimes, specifically the deliberate shooting of 780 Soviet civilians in the village of Briansk, attacking a "bread factory" on 23 May 1943, and destroying 345 "expensive" Soviet aircraft.[44] He refused to confess to these charges and conducted his own defence, which the presiding judge denounced as a "waste of time".[44]

Sentenced to 25 years of hard labor, Hartmann refused to work. He was eventually put into solitary confinement, which enraged his fellow prisoners. They began a revolt, overpowered the guards, and freed him. Hartmann made a complaint to the Kommandant's office, asking for a representative from Moscow and an international inspection, as well as a tribunal, to acquit him of his unlawful conviction. This was refused, and he was transferred to a camp in Novocherkassk, where he spent five more months in solitary confinement. Eventually, Hartmann was granted a tribunal, but it upheld his original sentence. He was subsequently sent to another camp, this time at Diaterka in the Ural Mountains.[45]

In 1955, Hartmann's mother wrote to the new West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, to whom she appealed to secure his freedom. A trade agreement between West Germany and the Soviet Union was reached, and Hartmann was released along with 16,000 German military personnel as one of the last Heimkehrer. After spending 10 and a half years in Soviet POW camps, he was among the last batch of prisoners to be turned over. Returning to West Germany, he was reunited with his wife Ursula, to whom he had written every day of the war.[46]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_ace

A flying ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down several enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The actual number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an "ace" has varied, but is usually considered to be five or more. The few aces among combat aviators have historically accounted for the majority of air-to-air victories in military history.[1] Erich Hartmann is the ace of aces, the highest scoring ace of all time with a total of 352 confirmed victories.