Trading is toil, especially because it’s already hard work in the first place to find a model, a “setup”, a strategy that actually works, but then you must adapt it, which is the very hardest part. Once you have a “love” (something that makes your trading profitable), whether it is a strategy, model, parameter, or setup, it becomes very painful to watch your love fade and die.
I know we shouldn’t personalize trading, but the fact is we (or I) develop an emotional relationship to our precious tools — every time I come across something worthwhile, after much toil, I feel so glad. I feel a sense of work well done. It’s a very pleasant feeling. And I cannot refrain from emotional pain when a market relationship I was profitably trading becomes weaker and eventually non-existent.
To adapt, one must have the emotional strength to, after much toil, model a strategy, and say to yourself: “you may have no value in the future.”
Trading is strange, because it demands skills one would probably not wish to nurture if it wasn’t necessary.