I see that most of us have similar character traits.
Personally, but I think it applies to other people here, I tend to spend more time on the system than it is actually needed, probably twice as much or more. The reason is that in order to trade, I had to cut off all the distractions in my life. But that meant cutting off tv, reading, writing, watching movies, all the other hobbies, and especially people. As a consequence of increasingly cutting off everything and everyone, often now I work on the system because I have nothing else to do. Also, because of having nothing do, I trade discretionary, which I shouldn't (it makes me lose money), but I do it, simply because I lack any other activity in my life, and I need some action and excitement, which is not coming from anywhere else.
I am not saying it's all negative, because I improved many things due to working so much on it, but now I'd probably profit more from doing other things and letting the system work, gather data, produce money, without messing it all the time, as I have been doing for the past few months.
So, I would sum it up by saying that you need to become a recluse to make it work at first, and then you need to become again a normal person (or become one for the first time), in order to enjoy the benefits of what you made, which are money and as a consequence free time, which was your original goal, but you may have forgotten it in the meanwhile.
Actually, I came back to edit the post and add this. Now I have the urgent need to stay away from the system, to let it work and not add my discretionary trades that make me lose money. But I can't really remember what it is that I was doing in my free time when I started studying the markets ten years ago. They now all seem meaningless activities. I worked all this time to have money to buy myself free time to write a novel or poetry, and now that I have the free time, writing novels seems like a waste of time to me. Right now all that seems worthwhile is having enough money to pay some prostitutes to have sex with me. Yeah, because I don't have a girlfriend, who'd make me lose control over my life and free time. I don't know what I'll do. Right now the best thing I can think of is watching tv. Only because I still don't have the money to pay prostitutes. A lot of work and talking needs to be done about the problems I am raising, I know it, but I have to momentarily go to work and stop it here.
