The holiday season is difficult for everyone, especially those working in healthcare and retail. This holiday season is especially brutal given the economic climate around us. Crypto is crashing. The stock market is crashing. Worldwide GDP's are crashing. Meanwhile Housing and Consumer Index is Skyrocketing crushing the average person.

These are scary and uncertain times for everyone. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt are all very understandable emotions to process right now. While none of us want to make financial decisions off these emotions, they are strongly felt in all of us. It's ok to say we're scared. It's normal. We should be. You'd be crazy to look at the world today and not be fearful.

You hear the platitude be greedy when others are fearful, and logically we all believe it. But to live it. To buy the dip when it just dipped again from the last time you bought it, and when you know it's probably going to dip again anyway. To buy it anyway knowing you're likely losing your shirt short term. That's scary. It hurts. It feels like sacrifice, and I hope you're taking care of your needs and family first.

Mike Tyson said something along the lines that everyone has a plan till they're punched in the face, and this was a massive punch to the face for many of us. It's important to embrace and feel these emotions, and to seek community and family.

Tip 1: Be Emotionally Real with Yourself

Your emotions are your friends-- they kick in faster than you can think. Before you've even processed the information, you've already started your emotional reaction. Take a step back. Identify the emotion. If you can't identify it, it's likely because the emotion is too real and visceral in the moment.

Create the habit of asking yourself how you're feeling and identifying the emotions. You are much more likely to make an emotional gut judgement if you don't know what you're feeling, and you don't want to make financial decisions without understanding your emotions in the moment.

Tip 2: Be Kind to Others

It's normal to be fearful in these times, and you aren't alone. Don't push others away, but find constructive ways to express yourself to the devs, mods, and other gamers. It doesn't help anyone to loudly proclaim the devs don't care and they're stupid. The splinterlands devs very clearly care, and they are not stupid by any definition of the term, and that doesn't make your anger or fear any less real. It's normal to feel like you need to say something. Anything. Just having a reaction feels like you're doing something. But make that something constructive.

The splinterlands dev team is very tired and have been working long hours, and they just laid off most of the team while taking a massive pay cut for everyone remaining. They're ready for this long bear, but it's going to take a toll on them too. Be there for them. Be kind. Be supportive.

Offer feedback. They want to hear from us, but offer proposed solutions and encouragement as well.

Tip 3: Focus on Accumulation, not Price

This tip may come too close to financial advice for my comfort, but I am not qualified to advise anyone.

This is purely what I'm doing. I'm not a financial advisor, and it kills me to view splinterlands as an investment.

It will always be a game first for me. I am personally investing in sps and glx because I believe in both the long term viability of the token, and the benefit of accumulating the highly inflationary influx of the tokens while they are available. These are not at all tokens I feel are viable for short term gains, but I'm certainly not focused on the short term right now.

I doubt SPS will ever hit a dollar again. That would be bizarre, but in the meantime, I'm getting a 55% APR on SPS in the DEC:SPS Liquidity Pool that I'm then compounding back in to accumulate even more. I don't need SPS to hit a dollar again to even make a profit on the SPS I bought at a dollar. Allowing the token to compound and accumulate for brighter days is my long term goal-- Chaos Legion might not even be modern legal the next bull market. But SPS is forever.

I believe strongly that the price of SPS will continue to go down, and that's ok. I don't want the dev team to artificially force it up-- that would come at the cost of the overall health of the game. But one day it will recover, likely not to its glory days, but I will have been compounding the token so long that I hope I'll be well ahead of investments I feel are riskier.

Tip 4: Focus on Fun

Life is hard enough without turning a game into added stress. Find the game modes that bring you the most joy and dive into them. Fine tune your discussion on the things that bring you the most joy because you don't need an opinion on every aspect of the game. If it brings you joy to make connections and discuss every aspect as it does for me, awesome. Still focus on the fun of it, not the stress of it. Take a playful approach to your online communication, and try to leave the salt to your arteries. Unless you're doctor tells you otherwise.

Tip 5: Problem Solve Whenever Possible

Write things out. Do the math. Logic Board. Find ways to really dive into your thought processes and actions-- it's hard to be anxious and problem solve at the same time. They use different parts of the brain. Spreadsheets, Essays, Premises leading to a conclusion, and any other problem solving activity you can focus on will help bring some of that fear back into perspective.

Final Thoughts

It's OK to feel fear, uncertainty, and doubt. These are very normal emotions in a bear market. You can try to repress it. Pretend it doesn't exist, but often that only makes the emotion stronger.

I hope these five tips, while perhaps not the tips you were expecting, help you manage your, very normal, anxiety in these trying times. If anyone ever wants to talk. My DM's are always open. It's important to be here for each other in times like these.