Stress of Decisions

The last few days has seen the market languish with low volumes. I am long and will continue to remain long until 4695 is broken. So I pray that I end up having a day of total inaction. A day of complete laziness and a day of total sloth.

As all of you know by now, I trade on the basis of a quantifiable set of rules. I therefore do not have the stress of deciding whether to be long or to cut and go short etc. That decision is out of my hands. But the fact that I do not have to take tough trading decisions does not mean that I do not have to face the stress of taking decisions. For eg. right now I am worrying about which would be the best route to drive to work.

Going via the Western Express runs the risk of meeting with the Anna traffic. Maybe taking the Eastern Express would be a better option today. But Eastern Express has much more of the heavy vehicle traffic. What should be the best route to work today? The wrong choice will have me stuck in traffic for long periods of time. The stress of these decisions, believe me, are much more than the stress of trading the Nifty.

Now that I think about it there are a few other choices that I have to make today that will cause me stress.                                                  1] How to spend the time when the market moves in a totally lackluster fashion through the day--specially after the India Australia Test ends at 12:30 p.m India time 

2] What lunch to order?

3] Which route to take on the way back from work?

4] Which movie to hire for the evening?

5] Whether to go out on 31st night or to stay home and watch TV?

I am sure that I can think of a few more decisions that are stressful. But it should do for the moment. To come back to the least stressful decision of my day, I am long and will continue to remain long until 4695 is broken.