Don't Let Your Memory Write the Script for the Current Moment.

Hello again, Spirit Animals.

Continuing the application of Mark Douglas' Five Fundamental Truths about trading applied to life, today we explore:

Truth #5: Every Moment in the Market Is Unique

A pattern may look familiar, but the actual outcome is never guaranteed to repeat. This matters because it keeps you from assuming, it prevents emotional attachment to past outcomes, and it forces respect for uncertainty.

According to Dr. Julis Torelli, this is how this same principle applies to life:

Every Moment is Unique.

The ego lives by recycling the past. It says:

  •  This happened before, so it will happen again

  •  I was rejected once, so I will be rejected again

  •  I failed then, so I am a failure

  •  This feels familiar, so it must mean the same thing

But the present is never just the past repeated. It is filtered through the past, not identical to it.

Do not let memory write the script for the current moment.

This is not just a cognitive problem. It is a somatic one. The body does not just remember past events. It stores the physiological state associated with them. When something in the present resembles a past threat, the body reproduces the original alarm state as if it is happening again. Your prefrontal cortex may understand that this conversation is not the same as the one that hurt you ten years ago. Your vagal system may not agree. The work is teaching the body that the present is safe enough to be experienced on its own terms.

Sean here:

This is a hard one. As an amateur market technician (who works with a bunch of professional market technicians), I've been indoctrinated in pattern recognition and the act of planning trades based on expected outcomes derived from previous instances. No matter how hard I try, when I see a familiar pattern my muscle memory puts me in action.

And I'm the same way when I watch my favorite teams play ("Here we go again, I've seen this movie before...")

Yet, intellectually, I know that every situation is a unique one. 

How do we balance the memory versus the uniqueness of this present situation? There is value in having perspectives from both camps.

Are we doing it wrong by allowing our past memories and experiences to cloud our judgement? Are we taking ourselves out of the present?  Is The Present the only thing that matters?
 

I'm curious about your thoughts. Email me.