This morning, I left the house stuck in traffic, and my coffee went cold before I took two sips... Suddenly, I thought of the mempool queue. When you click "send," you're actually just shoving your transaction into a crowded waiting room: miners/validators look at who offers the higher tip (gas) and pull them onto the bus first. During congestion, you'll experience: getting stuck without moving → starting to doubt if it was sent → actually sent but still waiting at the back → waiting too long and possibly being "cut in line" by someone else's new transaction (higher gas or replacing the same address). What's more annoying is that your slippage/limit order is based on the "current" idea, but by the time it's your turn to execute, the market may have already changed face. In the end, all you remember is one thing: gas was spent, and your mood is gone. Recently, everyone has been talking about rate cut expectations, the dollar index, and risk assets acting up together, and on-chain congestion feels even more like emotional resonance: when people get anxious, everyone rushes to cut in line. My approach is quite timid: for orders that aren't urgent, I prefer to be slow; for urgent ones, I just pay more as a toll, no self-deception.