I used to have a habit.

No matter what I was doing, I always had a candlestick chart open nearby.

When eating, my phone was propped next to my bowl.

When going to the bathroom, I took my tablet with me.

Even on dates with my girlfriend, I would sneak a quick glance at the market during her bathroom break.

Not because I was diligent.

But because I felt uncomfortable not looking.

That feeling was like missing something, a hollow emptiness in my heart.

What if, in those five minutes I stepped away, a big move happened?

What if I just missed the perfect entry point?

What if I earned less?

These "what ifs" crawled around in my mind like bugs.

Once, I went to the dentist.

Lying in the chair, my mouth stretched open, the dentist buzzing with a drill in my mouth.

One hand gripping the armrest, the other secretly pulling out my phone to check the market app.

The dentist stopped and asked, "What are you doing?"

I said, "Just taking a quick look."

He said, "What are you looking at? Your teeth are almost rotting to the nerves."

I said, "Just a quick glance, very fast."

The dentist took my phone and placed it on the tray beside me.

He said, "These five minutes, the world won't end just because you didn't look at your phone."

But those five minutes felt like the longest of my year.

My eyes closed, all I saw was candlesticks jumping, red and green, red and green.

I could even imagine whether Bitcoin was rising or falling in that minute.

When the treatment was over, I looked at my phone.

The price had changed less than twenty points.

Nothing had happened.

But I was restless for those twenty points of fluctuation, sitting in the dental clinic for a full five minutes.

Later, I started noticing something even scarier.

I wasn’t just watching the market during trading hours.

I was dreaming about it.

For a while, I kept having the same dream.

In the dream, a huge bearish candlestick smashed from the top of the screen to the bottom.

And then I got liquidated in the dream, woke up in shock.

Cold sweat all over.

I reached for my phone and checked; the price was steady, nothing happened.

But my heart was still pounding, unable to calm down for a long time.

That morning, I sat on the edge of my bed, lost in thought.

Suddenly, I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept peacefully through the night.

Nor could I recall the last time I ate without having my phone at hand.

I wrote down those "what ifs" one by one on a piece of paper.

What if I missed a point?

What if I didn’t copy the bottom?

What if I sold too early?

I filled an entire page.

Then I looked at them and suddenly felt absurd.

Among these "what ifs," none were truly capable of bankrupting me.

But because I was afraid of these "what ifs," I had turned myself into a slave.

Since then, I’ve forced myself to set two hours of "offline time" every day.

Just two hours, turn off all market apps, don’t look at prices.

In the past, I thought two hours would make me miss the whole world.

But the truth is, after two hours, when I open my phone, the price either hasn’t moved or moved just a little.

My world didn’t end.

My positions didn’t blow up.

The only thing that changed was that during those two hours, I did many things I never used to do.

Eat my meal carefully, take a walk downstairs, make a phone call home.

It feels strange.

Like someone who’s been locked in prison for a long time, finally touching the outside air for the first time.

Later, I no longer needed to forcibly set offline time.

Because I gradually got used to not being led by the price.

Sometimes I still look at the market, but not in that "I’ll die if I don’t" way.

Just a quick glance to see what’s happening, then put it down.

Someone asked me how I did it.

I thought for a moment and said,

Admit that you can’t control the market, admit that you’re not that important.

Admit that whether you’re there or not, candlesticks will keep drawing.

And then you can peacefully enjoy $ETH a meal.