At 18, you just started college and heard that trading cryptocurrencies can make money.

You opened an account, took the living expenses given by your parents, bought a meme coin, and three days later, it doubled.

You thought you were a genius.

At 20, you were in your second year, and your account had doubled. You started skipping classes, staring at the candlestick charts all day, fantasizing about becoming the next Buffett. Until one day, the market suddenly crashed, wiping out all your profits and even your principal.

You cursed: "Damn it!" and then uninstalled the software.

At 22, you graduated and found a regular job.

The salary was not high, but enough to get by. One day, a colleague was talking about stocks, and you got tempted, downloading the trading software again.

This time you were smart, only buying Bitcoin for "value investing," but it went sideways for a year, and unable to hold on, you sold.

The next day, it started to soar.

At 25, you switched jobs to a financial company, your salary increased, and your confidence came back.

You began studying technical analysis, drawing trend lines, looking at the MACD, confidently saying: this time it would be different.

However, a prolonged bear market hit, and your account was halved again.

You comforted yourself: it’s just bad luck.

At 28, you met a girl through a blind date.

She asked you what hobbies you had, and you said: "Researching investments." She smiled: "That’s great, you can handle the family finances in the future." You felt a tightness in your chest because you knew your account was still in the red.

At 30, you got married.

At the wedding, a friend asked you: "How's the stock market lately?" You laughed awkwardly: "It's okay, long-term investment, you know." In reality, your account was already down 40%, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say it.

At 32, your child was born.

You began to feel anxious about expenses for formula, diapers, and kindergarten. You told yourself: "I must earn it back!"

So, you leveraged up and put all your money into a stock based on "insider information." The next day, news broke that the exchange was delisting it, and the asset you held was dropping 30% in value every day.

You sat in your car, smoking, looking at the numbers in your account, feeling despair for the first time.

At 35, you finally faced reality and started dollar-cost averaging Bitcoin.

The market gradually warmed up, and your account finally broke even.

But you realized you were no longer like when you were younger, cheering for surges and angry at drops.

You just calmly watched the candlestick charts, like watching a movie whose ending you already knew.

At 40, your child started school, and expenses for tutoring and extracurricular classes grew larger.

You occasionally bought some meme coins but no longer fantasized about getting rich.

One day, your child asked you: "Dad, what is the crypto world?"

You thought for a moment and said: "It’s just a group of people buying hope with money, but most of the time, what they buy is just lessons.

At 50, your child went to college, and tuition was expensive. You looked at your account, and the savings you had accumulated over the years were just enough.

You suddenly remembered the dream you had when you were young—"financial freedom." Now you understand that freedom is not the number in your account but no longer being enslaved by desires.

It turns out, life is like candlestick charts, with ups and downs, but in the end, everything returns to calm.

In the last second, you hear the bell of the exchange.

On the screen, that meme coin you bought when you were young is still being traded.

And your account has long been cleared.

What I want to say is that lowering your stakes is the beginning of success.