Just recently, I encountered another period of severe on-chain congestion, watching a bunch of transactions queued in the mempool, it’s really like rush hour on the subway: you click confirm, but all you're really doing is shoving that "want to trade" ticket into the line, and then it’s up to miners/validators to see who offers a better tip and who’s got the more suitable order. The only things you’ll experience are: first, waiting, and as you wait, you might get pushed to the back; then, slippage gradually becomes worse, and the price gets eaten up by others first; the most annoying part is being stuck for too long, the market has already changed, your transaction is still on the way, and your mood starts to drift.

Recently, after incidents like cross-chain bridge hacks, I’m now more willing to wait a bit longer for confirmation, even if it’s slower, at least I won’t rush in during the chaos; and sometimes oracles report outrageous prices, and everyone is “waiting for confirmation” together—this kind of consensus is actually quite realistic, not every on-chain discussion is about reason.

Now I usually set a reminder/limit to avoid slipping and increasing the price when congestion hits. When I set that, I feel pretty calm, like I finally detached my emotions from the button… but honestly, I still get a itch when I see others trade first, so I can only sip tea and pretend to be steady.