What to do after selling at a loss?

Which is harder: finding good assets or buying back after selling at a loss?

Investing heavily is inherently more difficult than finding good assets. Many people around me who hold Bitcoin sell off some profits but rarely buy back after selling, so let’s not even talk about investing heavily again. Investing heavily means putting a large proportion of assets into a specific type of asset, which is a challenging task in itself.

When I initially bought Tesla, although I had done a lot of research, I still found it hard to make the purchase when the time came, and could only buy a small amount. This highlights how human nature struggles with large values; I noticed this when playing Texas Hold'em poker, where the absolute value of chips can bring psychological pressure. Although from the perspective of asset proportion it might not be significant, that absolute value inevitably gets compared to usual spending.

The difficulty of investing heavily again after selling at a loss lies in confronting mistakes. Admitting a mistake is not just about acknowledging it; it's a process that requires reconstructing many underlying beliefs. Furthermore, one's attitude towards mistakes can also be an issue, as sometimes people associate mistakes with personal image, feeling embarrassed after realizing their errors. Some ordinary people may consider making mistakes to be shameful, but many smart individuals believe that lacking the ability to correct mistakes is even more shameful.

Popper's framework of scientific philosophy also serves as an antidote, allowing us to understand that humanity progresses through these errors. The only way to create new knowledge is through conjectures and refutations, where we eliminate those erroneous conjectures, leaving behind the relatively correct ones. This means that the process of making mistakes, although unavoidable, is also the only path for us to discover new knowledge.