"In investing, **being an optimist doesn’t mean to euphorically cheer for a stock to go up. It means believing that the stock market will provide decent returns and allow for those returns to compound over time**. "The fact is that **evolution has wired us humans to think exclusively; either something is bad or it is good**. Think about it, you either like someone or you don’t. When you have an unpleasant argument with somebody at work or a family member you feel lots of negative emotions towards that person at that point in time. **However, when you look at your long-term relationship, that outburst of negativity might by just one minute in a thousand days of love and peace**. "Such behavior comes from our inheritance of "fight or flight" thinking, due to the necessity to think fast when faced with dangerous environmental situations over the last two million years. However, **this kind of primate thinking mechanism isn’t the best one to use when investing**." ([Location 914](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CNFFJ9J&location=914)) --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[value-investing]], [[fight-or-flight]], [[anxiety]], [[mindfulness]], [[rational-thinking]], [[optimism]], [[long-term-thinking]], [[progressing-slowly]], **Source** -- [[202506221723 - LN - Modern Value Investing]]