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.
