my journal

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Wish when someone criticized me that i could take on board what they are saying and improve myself
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You see, as a consequence of hearing too much criticism, we became over-sensitive to allergic to it. But then, being aware of this, we developed a counter-reaction that makes us accept even too much criticism/abuse from others (at least as far as I am concerned), and then we put up with too much from others, because we're unable to judge things objectively and unable to tell whether we're being intolerant as usual, or whether someone is abusing our rights. For example, this guy playing the radio at my office: I would kill him if I could get away with it. But then I tell him nothing at all, even if it's my right to work without having to listen to his radio. Why do I put up with it? Because I know how intolerant I am. I know how I never could stand any colleague that shared a room with me, and so I am afraid of being intolerant and mistreating someone who doesn't deserve it. Yet, on a daily basis, I wish this guy died and didn't come back to work to turn his radio on. Another person in the room, who is quite good at facing people and telling them what she's willing to put up with and what she isn't, on the other hand, doesn't mind the radio, doesn't mind the air conditioning and gets along with the colleague just fine. You see, in the past few years, nobody told him anything about the radio. Then I come, a few months ago i moved into this room, and I don't feel like I can tell him to change his life-long habits.

despite me thinking i'm quite good
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We probably also share this: we feel we are very good at doing things, but we also feel that others are not acknowledging this. We feel socially insecure. As far as me, this comes certainly from how my dad treated me.

The irony at the moment is that i'm on YOUR JOURNAL
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I am surprised how successful this journal is being. The thing you have to do when starting a journal (you could do it, too) is you have to be prepared to keep on writing it all by yourself, with no readers and no one showing any appreciation. I am ready for that. All my life I have trained for that, for being a black sheep, with my dad telling me I was worthless, teachers failing me... I am ready to do exactly what I want without any peer pressure, because I pretty have collected nothing but failures. Even when I trade, I go against the trend. By now if anyone tells me something cannot be done, I'll spend quite a while trying to see if I can be the one to prove him wrong.

maybe it re-enforces the behaviours
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Interesting point of view. It could be right and it could be wrong. I feel the medicine for low self-esteem and insecurity is getting a lot of praise from everyone. The cure for poverty is money. The cure for hunger is food. It's not to pretend you're not hungry, or that you don't feel like talking about yourself and your problems, and not that you don't want money. That would seem the natural solution to me, but your solution also sounds good, even though it's the opposite.

Overall I think I am a few steps ahead in some aspects compared to my father and to myself. He would never say out loud or to himself that he's sick and unbalanced in any way. At least not to me. Or maybe only to me. I am fully aware that I have a lot of limits. That I am very frustrated. That I am not happy. On the other hand, my being so obsessive and therefore able to focus on anything I set my mind on, is also a quality, to be exploited. I can't just let it go as if it were a total deficiency. I want to keep this ability to focus.

Maybe with time I'll get better, keep the qualities, and lose the deficiencies. Or maybe I won't. It feels good to write here, so I think one should do it.

Also, I think that if you are prepared to write a solitary journal, without receiving any praise, and putting on your ignore list anyone writing superficial remarks, then you could enjoy writing a journal as well, speaking and opening up about your trading and about yourself. I think this journal didn't hurt my trading - no reinforcing of bad behaviours in other words. And if it is like in trading, where you can't break even but you either win or lose money, then I would say that this journal was a profitable experience, since I am sure it didn't hurt me. Even now I didn't achieve any relaxation though. Imagine that I count the views and the posts to see if I can beat some record and in be in the top 10 of most read journals or journals with most posts. I even almost rated it with 5 stars to boost the ratings, but then I decided against it, but I am constantly tempted to do it. It's just like when I write how good I am and how good my systems are... if I don't get any praises I end up praising myself.

But none of this is pathetic. It's just how we are - do we have to be ashamed of how we are because of how our life caused us to be? Most others don't feel like opening up. That would seem even worse. We are all a product of our environment.
 
travis said:
We are all a product of our environment.
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Yeah, this is something i strongly believe in... I always get in arguements about that; i feel that crimes are justifiable; because i believe that if i were born as that person, with their genetics and had grown up with the exact same experiences and environment - Then i would have done the crimes too, so i cannot be judgement on them...

But others can't understand how i could think such a thing were true, because it means that i accept their is no responsability in life; almost as if everything is fated based on your environment and genetics.

:)

Overall; I just wish i had no anxieties and didn't have to be so aware of my inner-thoughts all the time; i suppose i felt like that when i went to Thailand, because i felt that the people weren't judging me.
 
Yes, I agree. All crimes are justifiable. Jail is just to stop these people from killing us, not really because they "deserve" it.

Freedom in a foreign country, just like in a new place. Yes, as soon as you are in a place where no one knows you, like a new school, or new neighbourhood, you're free to start all over again and be a different person. Just like if you meet your grandmother and you've become a judge or the prime minister, she'll probably still treat you like a child.
 
Some new thoughts.
Knowledge and money. How knowledge is money.

Taxi driver yesterday. He doesn't know the street, and drives me home at the cost of 14 euros instead of the usual 7. He lost, and I lost because of it. No complaining to him. During the whole trip I realized how I was stuck in traffic, just because of lack of knowledge.

Looking for a laptop on the internet. I went on ebay and there were plenty of them, new, being sold at 300 to 400. Then I went on another similar web site, and they were selling it for 500 to 800 (no bidding). Someone who doesn't know about ebay, will buy a used laptop at the price they charge you at the store for a new one.

I am sure there's similar examples in trading, even though much less so, because everything is more liquid and transparent (even brokers' commissions and costs). But I remember when I had an account in Italy I used to pay commissions of 16 euros to buy an ES contract, whereas today I pay less than 3 dollars for the same contract.

It's unbelievable how much just a little information can save you. From cab drivers, to computers, to brokers. In every field. Think of medecine. If you pick the wrong hospital, or wrong doctor, regardless of costs, you might end up dead instead of healed.

All this pondering, with a subconscious fixation and need: the need for the imminent death of my colleague. If I could have the right knowledge to get rid of this colleague in front of me playing the radio, I could avoid so much annoyance...

Is it more efficient to pray for his death, or to pay him to turn his radio off? It would be easy to tell our boss that it's my right to work in silence. I would certainly get my way. But somehow it's not "easy" at all for me, and I can't do it. This guy is twice my age, close to retirement, and I was taught to pay some respect to such people, despite the fact that he's abusing my rights. Somehow for me it's easier to pray for this guy's imminent death. Die, you mother ****ing son of a bitch. Please die. You don't deserve to live. You don't care at all about who surrounds you. You worthless piece of ****. Die, die, die.

Now, as usual, this ******* left and went I don't know where. To screw some woman, to take a walk around the building and talk to someone, and yet he left the radio on. So here I am listening to the radio of this mother ****er and I can't even turn it off because I am too respectful and polite to lean over and use his mouse to disable volume on his computer. Because it's not respectful to do so. And I am too respectful to even tell him to "please at least turn it off when he plans on not being here for longer than 30 minutes". I just avoid all conflicts. I was given too many rules to follow, and I don't even explode. I just put up with people's abuses because that's part of being polite. The only thing I am allowed to do is to pray for their death, and definitely turn down any opportunity to spend any more time with them than strictly necessary.

I can't ****ing believe it. I can't believe it. I having to listen to this ****ty music, and he's not even in the room, and I can't even make myself lean over and turn his radio off or disable his volume. And yet I wish he were dead. Three more months here and then I quit, or I'll end up killing this guy. And that would be impolite.

**** it. I just got up and disabled his volume. When he'll come back, if he says anything, I'll tell him: "what the **** am I supposed to do? You weren't there and it bothered me". Another 92 days and 11 hours to go. Then I'll quit, even if I just have 100 thousand saved.
 
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I came home, the neighbour slammed his door. I heard it from here. It shook me and gave me a heart-ache. I am bothered by all these people who do things without thinking about whether they may bother others or not. I hate his guts, too. I wish him death. As soon as possible. I am wishing death upon all those surrounding me. No wonder I want to live by the sea, especially when there are no tourists around. Or: I could become a dictator, but that's too complicated. I would have made a great dictator.
 
travis said:
I came home, the neighbour slammed his door. I heard it from here. It shook me and gave me a heart-ache. I am bothered by all these people who do things without thinking about whether they may bother others or not. I hate his guts, too. I wish him death. As soon as possible. I am wishing death upon all those surrounding me. No wonder I want to live by the sea, especially when there are no tourists around. Or: I could become a dictator, but that's too complicated. I would have made a great dictator.
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I avoid confrontation too; its because i have so much anger towards people and things that i never express, i know if they even slightly annoyed me to my face i'd just go crazy and they wouldn't understand, would think that i was crazy. I know if someone annoyed me that all the other angers i have with everything would just be directed @ that person...
Last time i got in a fight; a guy as a joke called me a twat - As he does everyone, but secretely it annoys me that he calls people twats, just because they aren't very confrontational and don't have anything to say back - Making the girls have a giggle, so i decided to beat him up for it; everyone thought i was being a prick though. But he does loads of other things i don't like and then calling me a twat, even as a joke, when i was drunk was enough... Because although he 'jokes', there always seems something more in it, as if hes trying to annoy you but he knows you can't do anything or you'll look silly. Which i definately did but it was worth it because i felt like the ****ing man afterwards.
 
I can see your point, because we're very similar, but I am against violence, in the sense that I wouldn't lift a finger against anyone. I am a peaceful guy. I'd have him killed by the secret police. Which reminds me of another movie I really liked:

Sollozzo: I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a businessman; blood is a big expense.
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The Godfather (1972) - Memorable quotes

How would you like it if you and I, along with some other intolerant NPD people and other control freaks from all over the world, got together and bought an island, where everything was perfect and under control? No dogs barking, no people slamming doors, no cars, no people with loud radios, no laughing. Everybody respecting the rules, and respecting one another. I think we could set up a peaceful place, something close to a hospital, except we're not sick (only mentally maybe). I'd be ok with it. You'd make a great neighbour.

The music playing in the background could be "Medication Valse" by Jack Nitzsche, or Gnossienne number 5 by Eric Satie.

Anyway, what's the point of hanging out with people who irritate you? Stay away from them. Stay in touch with people who are polite and respectful like I do... which means I am pretty much alone most of the time... but you get my point - those I meet are definitely my type of people. Don't even fight those you don't like, but try to keep a peaceful relationship with them and avoid them as much as possible. And if they ask you why, then you tell them "because you don't respect me enough, you're too loud, this and that...". That's just my opinion.
 
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Rule number one is that you can't trade.
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever know.
One is the loneliest number, much much worse than two.
Rule number two is that you must spend all your energy designing systems.
That's all for now.
 
I've been realizing that my systems are not that good after all. They are not including commissions nor spread, so they all make money, but if you include all those costs they sometimes have a whole negative year, and not just 3 months like it seemed before. Yet the fact that they are so many compensates for their low quality, so to speak.
 
Here I am, again. At the office, again. My countdown reads 91 days and 13 hours.

The ******* in front of me is whistling, and probably browsing on the internet. His radio is on, as usual. What bothers me the most is that when I get home the ****ty songs that played on his radio all day long stick to my memory. Just like for trading, Kerviel, Leeson were given popularity and money to invest and power without them knowing how to trade nor what they were doing. In the same way, very incapable musicians are famous, their songs play on the radio all the time. Fame doesn't mean quality. Nor being unknown means you are not good. Radio stations and tv are usually the sum of common sense, common taste, which is a synonim of ****. What's popular is most likely ****. What's fashionable nowadays is ****. In this sense, it's best to stay away from masses.
Unfortunately the colleague doesn't show any signs of approaching death. Now he's talking on the phone, and he sounds quite healthy. One day hopefully I'll get some justice and this guy will be dead, or out of my sight.
 
Things are going better now. He's not here with the radio. In an hour I am going home. I wired some money to my trading account so I can finally trade most systems together again. Hopefully this was the last time I wired money to and not from.
 
travis said:
Things are going better now. He's not here with the radio. In an hour I am going home. I wired some money to my trading account so I can finally trade most systems together again. Hopefully this was the last time I wired money to and not from.
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Travis for president :)
Its impressive you've made so many systems that work, you must have a special skill because most people can't; Good luck making money with your systems and make sure you let them work for you so you can quit your job and not listen to the radio.
 
It's funny... and yet very serious and meaningful... I was looking at it, at my ongoing profit, from my one open trade on the GBL.

Well, it was up 108 euros, and, as usual, I felt some urge to close it (to grab some profit that might go away). But then immediately I said to myself: it's not a matter of closing this one trade early (to grab some unbelievable profit that might go away). Because I may even be right on this one call, so that's not the reason I can't do it: not the fact that I'm usually wrong (and I am usually wrong). The reason I can't close this one trade is that if I do, from now on, every day and every instant, it will be up to me to decide whether I should close a given ongoing trade. And this has first of all proven not to be profitable in the long run, and second of all it will place a huge amount of stress on myself: I won't be carefree and letting the system do everything, but I will be stressed out all the time (and it will hurt my profits, on top of it).

So I reasoned like that, and I didn't close it. A few minutes later, it was at +208, and I felt an even stronger urge to close it, than earlier. But I thought again: if I do it, whether it's profitable or not, it will be the first step to my usual unprofitable discretionary trades, that will ultimately make me blow out my account for the fiftieth time. So I didn't do it once again, because I knew what would have come next: stress, and ruin.

Then, a bit later, it was at +308, and then +358 euros (a lot of profit for just 1 GBL contract), and I just came here to write, and didn't close it - not because it didn't make sense, because it definitely would make sense by now, with +350, for that single trade to be closed early, but because it made more sense to respect the principle of non-intervention by me. Since if I break that principle the first consequence will be uncertainty and stress from the moment I make that trade onward. The second consequence would be ruin because I can't make the right calls. So I can't allow myself to make ANY discretionary trade, no matter how good it may be, because it will be the first one of a long series that will lead me to blowing out my account. It's like when you quit smoking: usually you can't smoke ever again, or you risk starting all over again.

The only thing I don't like about quitting is this feeling of helplessness. It can do whatever it wants, and I won't be able to do a thing. It's like a child (I don't have any, but I think it'd be similar): you raise him and then you set him free. I've built it, and now I can't do anything about it. At least until it has any trades open. In the weekend of course, I can fix anything I want, because then my compulsive gambling won't be a danger.

Now it's at +388.

How do I feel? Excited and restless. I feel like jumping up and down. And that is the very excitement that usually screws me. Sooner or later it makes me do something that destroys my profit. Either by spending all the money I make, or by trying to speed up gains - but am I really trying to do that or is it just an excuse to sabotage the whole thing? I was raised a Catholic, my parents always taught me how immoral it is to be rich and even more immoral to make money without working... are we sure that I am not having all these problems keeping my profits only because, deep inside, I feel that I am not supposed to have this easy and unnecessary money? It is "necessary" only because I want to quit my job, but maybe deep inside I feel that it's also immoral to not have a job. I thought I was atheist, but the word "sinner" still echoes in my mind and my subconscious from time to time. My mom was a catechist, she was my catechist as well, along with a bunch of other kids. And now I've become... a renegade.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/renegade
 
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Well one for not touching your trade Travis- Thats fantastic and really intelligent for your long-term benefit :) x

Proud of you skipper.
 
Here I am again, at the office. I said "ciao" to the guy with the radio, and he didn't reply. So why is this? He doesn't care to make the effort to greet me? Or does he know that my "hi" means "**** you"? Then, a bit later, the other colleague, another slacker, came in and he said "hi" back to her. So it's pretty clear. But I am not going to start a fight about the fact that I say "hi" and he doesn't reply. And regardless of his bad manners, I will still greet him every morning. Not because I am "good". I just want to make sure that I am right, when I'll finally go on a shooting rampage. I totally despise him, and whenever I'll finally yell at someone, he'll be the first one on my list, and probably the only one, because when I pick a fight with someone I prefer to focus 100% against the worst enemy. It'll be a small fight - one sentence long. I'll simply say "Oh, yeah? Is that the way things are? Not only this and that, but now I have to put up with this, too?" and he'll certainly agree that I am right, because I only start a fight when I am right from all possible points of view. And also when I am upset. So I'll be both right and upset and he'll certainly won't show any reaction. I know because it's happened before, and he just agreed that I was right, without putting up a (losing) fight.

What did save him so far is that he's twice my age, six times my years spent at the bank, and one year away from retirement. I was raised to pay extra respect to people for such reasons - but there's a limit to the disrespect I can take before thinking I don't owe him any more respect.

He barely does any work, keeps me from concentrating, doesn't even want to get up when he prints something. He actually prints right when I get up to go to the printer and get my stuff, so he knows I'll bring him his stuff. I think next time I won't bring anything. What the hell... he doesn't even say "hi" to me and I have to bring him his documents? Also, he sometimes leaves the damn radio on when he goes on his break, this jerk. Also, when he turns on the lights, he keeps the one that bothers him off, and turns the one over me on - he mumbled some stupid excuse the first he did this. He might as well have said "this light is too strong, so I'm going to turn just yours on, and let it bother you instead". He's pretty much an animal in the body of a human. But I am keeping count of all the **** I am having to put with.

-90 days and 14 hours. To my resignation or to my part part time, of 4 hours a day at most.
 
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Good idea. My opinion is that it's better to quit than to go on a shooting rampage.

90 days, 9 hours, 45 minutes (to quitting or to 4-hour part-time)
 
I don't think a shooting rampage is for me;
I've always thought that if everything ****ed up real bad and i'd get all the cash i have (and if there is none then thats fine, i'll get it) and just go away from the UK and just travel around, without a solid location/home and just get by; It would probably be great fun and unstressful - You don't need to put up with the pressures of modern civilization :p You can just go to an undeveloped place and be King.

Well thats the theory anyway.
 
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