I was watching the mempool for a while today, and during congestion, it really feels like waiting in line to buy bubble tea: you submit your transaction, and it first "waits for its turn" in the pool, miners/validators prefer to pick the ones with higher fees first. If you set the fee too low, it just stays there, occasionally bumped to the back; if you're unlucky, it might expire, or you get impatient and resend with a higher fee (the same nonce), basically just slowly testing your patience. Recently, I heard that some regions are tightening and loosening taxes and regulations, causing unpredictable inflows and outflows, making the congestion on the chain even more obvious... I generally don’t try to fight the peak directly anymore; if I can wait, I wait, doing everything in one batch to save on gas and reduce anxiety.