[M2] Leave it aside

A recommended way to foster patience is planting some succulents. Water them once a month, then forget them. If they survive, which is not uncommon, one may be touched one day by the outcome of their growth for their sluggish and thus hard-to-notice growing process. There are times of course when some plants die due to various reasons. In this case, one may choose not to grow the same species or choose to try to find out the cause of death.That applies to investment activities. Li Xiaolai in his column comes up with a viewpoint, which he believes is an all-purpose key to various “locks”:

当你遇到被锁上的锁头的时候，要想到你应该去别的地方找钥匙……

To put it in a simple way, when growing a plant, one should not always give all his or her attention to the plant, but rather leave it alone. One reason is that we have things more important to do, which deserve more of our concentration. So when we buy some financial products and the deal is done, one recommended way to avoid anxiety of loss is just to live as if we lost it. That is also a tip already given by Buffet.

In this tactic lies a fact that we can afford to lose it. On the one hand, we may say what we lose (though the loss is not necessarily real) is only a small proportion of all. And on the other hand we may believe that even if we really lose the money, we can make up the loss as quickly as possible by other ways. As for the latter, it comes to the issue of concentrating on where true value lies. The value rather than the price matters, especially the value of real growth of one’s faculty. This of course requires a strong mind.

Again I recall my high school maths. These days I begin to restore my curiosity about maths. I no longer have the pressure and anxiety as ages ago. Once upon a time, the pressures came from all direction, especially the pressure of time. Now I begin to realize that the solution of a question may exist not in the question itself but lies elsewhere. If I find a question hard to solve, I may as well record it, skip it and keep advancing toward other parts. It is very likely that I may find the key later.

So it is with my English level and other skills. Say, if I want to take another step further as for my listening comprehension, I may have to deliberately practise the recitation and speak as frequently as I can. As for writing, ornate wording and sentence patterns are not that important as the underlying sound logic.