It is my birthday weekend (it's on Monday, but Monday's are not fun days!) and of course, OF COURSE, I get something in my left eye driving home yesterday and it was really bothering me. I went out to dinner and I was getting more and more concerned as whatever it was had not worked itself fee.
When I got home I flushed it out with some saline drops and still no progress. Looking at it in the mirror I saw a black speck right over where the green of my eye is. It was chilling. The speck would not flush out nor move and I was getting more alarmed. I went for the emergency room visit. The nurse practitioner was excellent and checked for everything. I had that fluorescein dye put in and before he did anything he said there were not abrasions on the cornea. He did see the speck of dirt/dust/debris and gave me lidocaine to numb the eye. The speck was removed with a fine Q-tip thing but after the fluorescein dye showed a small abrasion where the debris had been. Must have really been jammed in there. The eye felt better.
This morning my left eyelid was about swollen shut from all the abuse and I had to take a day off from work. I have to go to an opthamologist next week for follow up care. I was sitting on the couch today and thinking about my job, my trading, my writing, and my body and it hit me.
I am pushing things too hard.
Up at 5am and a full day at a real job where I am a scientist. Long commute home and then I am doing a full evening effort on house things like dinner, clean up, and taking care of the dog and cat. Then it's writing this blog and putting a market hat on, often well into the night. Then it's all done over and over again. The real pros of the market devote their full time effort to a full on day of work, and now I know why they are the pros. It takes a lot.
The cornea abrasion is a random event, but not some other health related things I have been going through. I don't sleep enough. I have gained 10 pounds in about 6 months. I get sick easier and while I have loads of mental energy, physically I am feeling a bit spent. I have a wonderful wife whom has supported my efforts, but has been mostly only able to spend time with me mainly on weekends. I go on vacation in late April into May for a long Bahamas stay and I don't like how I look at all. At all.
And I have had enough.
I am implementing the "Less is More" plan:
I have joined a gym, and have a plan going forward to do things I have missed out on. Fishing (it's almost Spring!), back to charcoal smoking food, vacation, and plenty of other things.
I am not falling off the face of the Earth. I am looking to do maybe 2 posts a week for the near future and they will be more macro based observation posts. I am about a 5X better longer term trader than a short term one and I would love to really devote all my market time to that kind of trading (investing?) going forward. I will be scaling way back my Twitter time as well. My email at the top right is always available and I answer every single one, non scam related. My good friends can always count on me and find me no problem.
While I am excited to do things I really want to do for a better me, writing this post is making me really sad. It's not a goodbye, but it almost feels that way. I give a lot of myself here and I hope I helped and made a difference.
Have a good night.
7 comments:
I hear you my man.
The best antidote is to give yourself (and life) more of your time and post when you can, not post all the time and live life when you can. I went through the exact same thing a year ago (remember when I "retired"). Now that I post when I feel life it, it has become the fun thing it started as.
I definitely hope / expect you to stay involved. I can tell your passion for it will always be there.
But go enjoy life and get yourself in the shape you need to....
Best,
Jake
Thank you Jake. I was thinking about your post last year tonight. It's going to be fine and no way I can keep my mouth shut forever lol. All my best for you and your family.
J - you're fkn awesome and you've got my full support
Came here through someone's RT from twitter. Health is the most important thing! Just want to wish you well.
Well, it's like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This porridge is too hot. This porridge is too cold. But this porridge is just right.
You just have to find the right balance, GYC. That's what it's all about. Life is for living, not wasting away.
So, you've gained some weight, eh? Believe me, that's mostly due to water retention. When you get to the gym, go with light weights and high reps, do a total body workout, and build up a good sweat. In about six weeks, you'll be back to your old self.
I think you're stressing over this thing in your eye. Yeah, that would stress me out too. But this too shall pass. I suspect you'll take a few months off, with sporadic posting, work out for a couple of weeks, go on vacation, come back a new man and throw yourself right back into the thick of things. It's in your nature.
Anyway, guess who we got a phone call from yesterday. If you guessed Chase, you win a prize. "Are you sure you want us to remove you from our referral list? You, know all the banks, Fannie and Freddie, are switching to our compensation system. Everyone follows Chase."
My ass! What a complete idiot this guy is. People simply don't understand the business of real estate. Just to get your license, the coursework costs $1800. To get a broker to activate your license so you can join the board and gain access to MLS costs another $1200. So you're looking at $3000 before you even get your first listing. And even if you sell that listing the day you enter it, it will take at least six weeks to six months before the deal closes and you get paid. That is, if the deal closes and funds. Any deal can fall apart at the last minute. Then you get nothing, and have to start all over again.
And what are you supposed to live on in the meantime? Realtors don't work on a salary. We work on a pure commission basis. We only get paid after the deal closes and funds. In between paychecks, we have living expenses, rent, house payments, food, utilities, taxes--since we're all self-employed we have to pay the whole nut for social security, 12.4%--not to mention car payments, gas, maintenance--no one compensates us for that.
It costs a lot of money to maintain a license. I costs a lot more money to find these houses, maintain them, turn on the utilities, repair them, make them suitable for showing, market them, advertise them, show them, and sell them. All for a paycheck somewhere in the distant future.
Yet this idiot thinks that realtors will be able to survive on a 1.25% commission, by doing a whole lot of expensive work for little compensation. This is absurd.
Here's what's going to happen as long as this trend continues, blaming realtors for the collapse of the housing market or expecting realtors to lose money for doing their jobs. Hey, all we to do is take the listing. The seller sets the list price. We market and advertise the house, show it and try to sell it. Hopefully, after closing and funding, we'll get paid a reasonable market rate for our services. 1.25% is not a reasonable market rate, nor is it economically feasible. No one can survive on that.
So, if everyone, as this banker idiot says, follows Chase, it will only be down the road to destitution and poverty. Soon there will be no realtors left, and then who are these banks going to hire to list and sell their foreclosed properties? No one. There will be vacant, unmaintained homes, rotting across the landscape, amid failing banks.
Talk about an economic disconnect.
Thanks Julian, I appreciate it.
Anon, thank you so much.
Gawains, I dont think its water retention, just fat retention LOL!
JH, thanks my friend.
I empathize. It's tricky to find that right balance of things. I hope you find yours and are happy with it! :)
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