In poker, we call it TILT. In life: BURNED OUT!.
There are certain way to know you are tilted and certain strategies to prevent it and deal with it.
In general terms "you are on TILT" any time you play under your "A" game. That's one definition that I don't really agree. In practice TILT means that you are emotionally out of control, that you have lost the realms, that your rational brain has been fried and you are now running on red-hot-emotions.
A person on Tilt might say " I can never win!" or just go all in every hand. Or you could just push your edges more aggressively than necessary or just try to beat a specific person at the table. All very stupid, not profitable behaviors. There are many types of Tilt and many way to get over it.
You could have a lapse of judgement, a momentarily emotion overcoming your decision mechanism that is fast being subdued. That's the PRO tilt, they can, with the blink of an eye, forget something ever happend. The last hand is ancient history already.
There's the TILT that most people experience, where you know you just can't take it anymore, too man bad beats for the day, too many bad hands or simply you are annoyed by stuff outside the game and affects it. Your girlfriend left your for your best friend, for example. This is the TILT that you need to recognize and walk away from the table for a day or two until you are back.
Finally, there's "LIFE TILT" where you just feel that the cards are against you and they will always be against you. It sucks and hard to describe to non-poker playing [eople. The very intense, very real sensation of having a target on your back....
I tell you all this to get that TILT is a lot like being BURNED OUT. Which I am. The Crypto world finally got to me. I dunno what happened, I guess at some point, even I could not follow my own advice.
I checked my Blockfolio too often, I followed the hype trains, the pumps and the dumps. OH, the dumps. I got stuck hodling some shitcoins that went down the drain when I KNEW I shoudl have sold. And generally the market was a depressing sight lately. It created a envirnoment of bears that slowly, like the chinese water torture, every day, a new drop falls on your head...every damn day. Until you finally go crazy.
So many things happened in the crypto world in the lsat month, fast, one after another, a constant stream of news - good and bad - and a TON of ICOs. Ico after ico breaking record after record and opportunities after opportunities all blurred together in something that became, to my mind, unfollowable, unreadable. trash. A whitepaper blending into the next one. Who can tell anything apart?
The drop that did it for me was missing on EOS sale. It was one of the ICOs that I really looked forward to but then, I got analysis paralysis. I started to doubt and I could not see the forest from the trees anymore. I am not even sure now that I made the right decision but I certainly missed a few important things too. Because I'm not playing my "A" game. I feel tired.
I feel unfocused.
Am I the only one? ( Probably not :) )
Been asking around and many people seem to feel the same. It's time to take a step back and take a breather. Walk away from the table for a little while, drink some water, go swim, take a mini-holiday. You'll be back as new, they say, they said, I was like "nah". But...
I am going to try to make some changes. Get back into reading more. I always felt that reading is the most relaxing thing in the world. I realized I read less in the last 3 months than ever before. Too many hours spent on crypto-news...
I want to get back in the gym. And leave my phone in the locker room. I sorely missed the gym time lately and even when I went, I felt that my mind was somehwere else. Presence. Presence is a gift.
I'll finally re-start my meditation practice.
And I hope to get to write more around here. Writing always calms me. Just like writing this here, already make me feel better. Everything is clearer now.
Thank you for reading, share with me your experience on this and any advice you might have.
r.