Just now I was itching to do a trade during the congestion, but when I looked, I saw a whole line of people in the mempool jumping ahead… Basically, your transaction gets put into a “waiting room” first. Miners/block producers handle the ones with higher fees first—if you didn’t add enough fee, your transaction gets stuck spinning. After a while, you might get pushed further back, or even expire outright. It’s really easy to lose your cool and want to raise the fee immediately.

So I’ll set a simple rule for myself: if it stays pending for more than a few minutes, I’ll close the page first, go refresh the proposal comments section twice, and then come back (forced calm). Also, lately hardware wallets have been out of stock, and there are more phishing links, so I don’t dare to click external links like “accelerators.” I’d rather be slow and double-check the address again… After all, that impulsive moment is the most expensive.