According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary,©1981 (Terry, seriously, you need a new dictionary. . . . I know), one definition of vocation is “a summons from God to an individual … to undertake the obligations and perform the duties of a particular task or function in life.” Long-winded but true. In fact, frighteningly true.
Does an angel, majestically arrayed, appear to you in a dream and gracefully give you a gentle nudge to trade? Or does God send the devil (like He did with Job) to destroy your old life and force you into trading? I can’t believe I just lost my job! What the *!@* am I going to do? Fire-spitting voice of the devil roars, “Trade!” Are you insane?
Angel of light, angel of darkness. God uses both as messengers. And, hopefully, for the neophyte trader, God uses evil to do good (to paraphrase St. Paul).
Refusal of God’s call is sometimes the first response of the neophyte trader. This could mean it is a true calling. An intense struggle is usually a prelude to undertaking a new and deeper life’s path.
Contrast this with a person who is attracted to trading by the latest forex ad attesting that most of the multi-trillion dollar currency market can be yours in 10 days without knowing anything. Easy trading success can be glamorously portrayed: A new Porsche, a multi-million dollar house, etc. Unfortunately, too many people who follow this Siren’s call end up like Chris Farley, playing a unsuccessful motivational speaker in a Saturday Night Live skit , who repeatedly laments, “I live in a van down by the river.”
The aforementioned, and to some neophyte traders, the accursed dictionary also states the definition of vocation to be “a divine call to a place of service to others in accordance with the divine plan.” OK. That’s too much. First I have to become a trader and then as a trader help other people. I thought successful traders eat people for breakfast—especially, the person on the losing side of the trade.
This trader’s dilemma reminds me of an episode that appeared on the old Outer Limits TV series where the humans decipher the title of a book written by aliens as To Serve Man. In the last scene you see throngs of humans entering the aliens’ ships for transport to the aliens’ planet. Then a human runs up and yells, “It’s a cookbook!”
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