What is your single biggest fear in life?

Quote from Thunderdog:

A rather curious choice of dogs for someone who has a lingering fear of them. Are you perhaps trying to confirm the validity of your fears?
:D
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not by choice, rooming with a friend.
 
T-DOGG. Jack-Style (if indeed Jack has any style), I shall respond to your post by quoting you and then meta-commenting NLP style.

"Let's take a few moments for a bit of self-indulgent introspection, by answering four questions."

T-DOGG, you have always been supportive of my love-hate relationshp with ET, so I shall be gentle. You recall that Carl (why not Karl, one wonders) said that "All psychology is autobiography." All I can say is "self-indulgent." Were I to say more, I would say, "Why only FOUR questions?" I can think of MANY more important, not the least of which is "What do women want?". But no matter, evidement you are obsessed with trading to the detriment of reality.

1. Presently, what is your single biggest fear in life? It need not be limited to the trading arena.

Why is trading an arena? Why must one fear life at all? These are the concerns of a man who is not giving and getting enough orgasms. But to be polite, and true, my own greatest fear is that one morning I shall not wake up with a hard-on. Perhaps because I am dead. Or because no post-multiply-orgasmic fat girl is beside me.

2. How, and to what extent, do you think this fear has either helped or hindered you?

I think you mean this to be in the context of trading, which clearly is a substitute for good sex. It has helped me because I feel that I need to get off before I trade. It has hindered me because after I get off I don't care about trading.

3. If you have found that, on balance, your fear has hindered you, what steps do you think you would need to take in order to overcome that fear?

If somehow I could hook my sensitive parts up to an electronic stimulator which would make winning trades as much fun as sex, I could overcome my fear that good sex does not translate into good trading.

4. If you are not presently taking these steps, what prevents you from doing so? (If, indeed, you have found that your fear serves as a hindrance.)

I find that chronic alcoholism, which fosters chronic priapism, is a hindrance to EVERYTHING. That is why one needs good trade codes. We can't ALL be Jack.
 
Quote from hypostomus:

...But to be polite, and true, my own greatest fear is that one morning I shall not wake up with a hard-on. Perhaps because I am dead....
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Hypostomus,

Clearly, then, you live by the adage that life is hard, and you are rigid in your beliefs. In your defense, I suppose that flexibility can have its downside...

Carry on.
 
Losing my head and getting married again......:D

But i will say this, if it ever did happen, she would be a special person. Chances are better for me to win the big lotto....HA...:D

Lots of special gals out there but when one is set in their ways such as i am.......................:cool:
 
Quote from Thunderdog:

Darn. I was hoping no one would notice that I didn't answer my own question. (Thanks, missy.)

Let me tell you first why I asked the question. I read in a number of books over the years that there is a tendency (but not necessarily a certainty) for people to bring about into there lives that which they fear. Apparently, they bring it about by dwelling on their fears and therefore living in that context. For example, Elvis Presley was afraid that he would die in his early 40s as his mother did. And despite his fear, or perhaps because of it, that is what happened. His addiction to pain medication certainly didn't help, but neither did his obesity. However, you would have thought that his morbid, haunting fear would have prevented him from abusing drugs and becoming obese rather than drawn him to it.

Examples such as these, especially less dramatic ones that tend to go more unnoticed, got me thinking. Fear, or a healthy respect for the unknown and the uncontrollable seems to be a good thing, in that it serves to act as a protective mechanism. At what point, however, does a fear become an obstacle? How best to determine that point of demarcation and possibly prevent it from spilling over onto the "dark" side? I suspect that there are no clear answers other than waiting until a fear negatively affects your life and then working to eradicate it -- a trial and error of sorts.

One of my favorite television shows in its day was Frasier. One particular episode slapped me in the face, but good. Frasier was having a difficult time in his relationships with women. He was afraid of rejection. As a result, he was afraid to commit to a relationship because of his fear of vulnerability and rejection. He then came to the startling revelation: "I'm alone because I'm afraid of being alone!" Talk about an epiphany.

It was in that context that I wondered if respondents to this thread might find any similar revelations about themselves.

As for me, DonnaV, I have two competing fears. One is similar to that of Frasier. Another is the fear that one day I may have to stop trading because my method will cease to be viable despite my efforts to modify or overhaul it. The classic fear of failure, I suppose. Thank you for asking.

Your turn, Donna. What do you fear?
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ok...yours in quite profound....I think my problem is I have no fear...fear is healthy as you point out and not having fear can be a problem in life as you will often put yourself in dangerous or vulnerable situations....like picking up hitch-hikers or hitch-hiking yourself ( I've done both)...then you go...oh shit :eek: I did fear death for a long time but decided to get over it as there is nothing I can do about it....now I keep on my nitestand my motto by Thoreau...."We have lived not in proportion to the number of years we have spent on the earth...but in proportion as we have enjoyed"....and try to enjoy all the minutes I have on this earth.
 
Quote from DonnaV:

ok...yours in quite profound....I think my problem is I have no fear...fear is healthy as you point out and not having fear can be a problem in life as you will often put yourself in dangerous or vulnerable situations....like picking up hitch-hikers or hitch-hiking yourself ( I've done both)...then you go...oh shit :eek: I did fear death for a long time but decided to get over it as there is nothing I can do about it....now I keep on my nitestand my motto by Thoreau...."We have lived not in proportion to the number of years we have spent on the earth...but in proportion as we have enjoyed"....and try to enjoy all the minutes I have on this earth.
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Thank you for a most interesting, if somewhat tardy, response.

A few other respondents mentioned the fear of dying. And as I replied, I personally do not have a conscious fear of death in the normal course. However, I imagine that it would almost certainly arise if I suddenly found myself in physical danger or if I became gravely ill. In the meantime, if such a fear exists in me, it lies fairly dormant. Admittedly, I do drive responsibly and I avoid questionable alleys at night. However, is that simply prudence and a respect for life or an underlying fear? I suppose a case could be made either way. And either way, I'm okay with it.

What I find intriguing about your response is that you went from an apparently conscious fear of dying to no fear at all. Surely it is not that black and white, is it? Surely there are varying shades of gray within this broad spectrum. Regardless, I am baffled how someone can leap from one end of the spectrum to the other without getting any of those pesky splotches of gray on them.
 
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