I want to share a rather memorable incident in my life many years ago that seems utterly relevant even to this day, especially in the crypto space and pretty much all other areas of life where opportunities are involved. Though I am an advocate of being openminded and able to change our stance on things as they happen, sometimes making plans and sticking with them can have a lot of value, even if it turns out that the plan should fail. Sticking with it is often much better than to abort the plan and your commitment at the last second and jeopardize all hopes of succeeding one way or the other. Last minute fud can certainly hurt a lot!
Sporting event preparations
A short back story.
During my highschool time there were these annual sports events in our school where everyone participated in several different disciplines according to the season. You can think of them as some sort of "Olympics" even though it was more about participating than about "winning" to most.
These games were held twice a year, one set with summer sports like running (track), throwing discs, jumping. And one in winter - indoors - using several different pieces of equipment.
And every fall we would start getting ready for the winter event, practicing several of the disciplines and perfecting our preparations to be ready to hit high scores when the event came.
And that year I was really stoked on jumping one of the aperatures that I had just beat the year prior for the very first time: Jumping one of these things over its entire length, which I was rather proud of.
So for the very first practice session in fall we finally set up our gear to practice on and I was thrilled. Finally I would be able to beat this thing in the actual event and I would practice for it like crazy. It was fun and it was an awesome bodily achievement most in my class would not dare touch. Sugar for the ego, right?
Then came the first attempt in the new fall season, and well... it didn't go so well.
You sure? Yes. No. Nooooooooooo!!!!
It was my turn to give it a go, the teacher asked me whether I really wanted to start with the jump across the entire length of the thing and I said YES! I was that stoked. But as so often in life sometimes we can get ahead of ourselves which I noticed a bit too late.
I was running towards the aperture with full speed and as I got closer to it the thing seemed to get longer. And longer. And longer. Until my mind started to actually wonder for a split second whether I had actually ever made it across the entire length or whether it had been a dream.
Suddenly I was gripped by uncertainty. I doubted whether doing this was a good idea at all and as I was running towards that thing with everything I had I actually started to be afraid. What if this goes really wrong? What if I underestimated the difficulty of this jump?
Well, as wrong as it went, the illuminating lesson was that the doubts I had, the fear of hurting myself, was exactly what led to one of the biggest injuries of my life.
I had already been running too fast so stopping was not an option, the thing was too damn close already. Could have tried to run past it but about a dozen of my classmates were watching and so was my sports teacher, all being rather stunned that I would start with this particular challenge fresh after the summer season. I guess the watching eyes only heightened my own expectations of myself, but that however did not make the fud go away. The fud went wild!
So here I was, succumbing to fear and slowing down too much in the futile attempt to somehow be able to make it across the entire length better if I took it slower. This is not how it works. If you want to jump across a gulch you definitely don't want to slow your approach before the jump! What a newsflash ;)
I put my hands on top of it, not gripping ahead far enough, and everything kinda went to slow motion. I spread my legs to both sides and moved my torso forward. My full body weight was flying over the point I had gripped with my hands and I noticed right after starting the jump that I would never make it across the thing with a running speed that slow. "Too late" was my last thought as my body came down on about half the length of the thing with my right arm straight under me, my full body weight tearing at my forearm and its entire structure.
The entire body weight with momentum was too much for my right arm to withstand (by now my body was beyond it) and the full force instantly snapping my arm's bones in two. Well that sounds dramatic, you couldn't see anything, but the x-ray certainly could ;)
It was painful to say the least. I had this funny thought of "Oh well, so much for this winter season, kinda glad that was decided so quickly" which surprised me, as I laid down screaming in pain holding my arm that felt shattered. It was a rather psychedelic moment to say the least, long before I discovered psychedelics.
Ego saying "how could you be so stupid to slow down?" - Intuition saying: "This is hilarious, it'll probably be a great lesson in the long run. No worries."
I was laying next to the aperature while a few of my friends came running to ask whether I was ok and I said it hurts like hell. You couldn't tell the arm was broken but the pain was a dead giveaway that it was a serious injury. Serious for my standards anyway. lol.
Turned out a day later it was broken, but in a rather fortunate way. I wore a cask for the next few weeks and everything went slowly back to normal as I watched my classmates participate in the winter event while I sat on the bench not minding half as much as I thought I would.
The moral(s) of the story
Fud can hurt a lot because it makes you tremble and hesitate when action is needed and determination/discipline is key.
Fud can also be a great teacher. It might seem unfair and it might hurt a lot when a golden opportunity is flaked because of mind-born indecision but the lesson will shine brightly and be more potent than most successfully executed plans ever could.
If you are fud'ing, do take note of the lesson and it will become a great teacher however harsh-mannered the delivery might seem in the moment.
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