I think I’ve established my passionate defense of the Halloween holiday. Let me continue this discussion by way of this image from my dining room:
There they are. Sixty full-sized candy bars, ready to distribute for Halloween in a few weeks.
What’s remarkable about this scene is that the boxes have a property which they have never had before: they’re unopened. See, before-2021-Tim would have definitely had at least one of these suckers open. Because, from time to time, I might just like a little treat myself, right? I mean, I deserve it. Don’t I?
But something important changed this year, as some of you may recall, and it’s this:
This is not the kind of weight-loss success story that’s going to make the National Enquirer. But in a fairly short amount of time, I went from 196 pounds to 185. Eleven pounds. That’s the entire body weight of my smallest dog!
With the weather too chilly to swim anymore, I really need to watch myself. But what I noticed was that not only had I not opened the boxes, but I didn’t want to open them. And it wasn’t from self-talk (“C’mon, Tim, you know that would be a big mistake“). I simply didn’t have the urge anymore.
The point of this post isn’t about my weight, even though God knows I am desperate for a large group of mostly middle-aged men to have my physique on their minds. It’s about simple self-discipline. We all need that in the trading world. And discipline, evidently, is a habit. ‘
I have spent years and years nibbling and sneaking Halloween candy, and that was one of those elements that kept me drifting just under 200 pounds for so many years. My “not being a pig all the time” natural weight is more like 186, and I’m finding it’s pretty easy to stay there, even without swimming, with my new mindset.
It works for the belly. And I bet it works for trading, too.
