Letting Go

I have very few regrets. Sure there are the dumb physical things I’ve done that I wish I hadn’t. For example, I really wish I hadn’t ridden shotgun on a four-wheeler down a hill named “Shaboom” when I was in high school. The crushed spine I ended up with hurts fairly often, even 20+ years later. I also wish I hadn’t torn the nerve in my index finger working on a dishwasher, around the same time, when I was in high school. I can’t feel properly with the tip of my finger now, and when I touch the outside edge, I feel it on the inside edge. Very strange. At the end of the day, however, I don’t have any serious regrets that I worry have ruined my life in any significant way.

Well, until recently.

Have you heard of Bitcoins? I have. In fact, back before anyone knew what they were, I was mining them. I mined thousands and thousands of them. I traded them for cash, and bought Christmas presents a couple years back. Heck, a year ago, I cashed in a couple thousand to get the money we needed to move to Grand Rapids. Then, when we moved back this past summer, I cashed in every last Bitcoin I could scrape together in order to move back. I never regretted using Bitcoins, because it was “free money” so to speak. (There was a cost, but I cashed in enough to cover that long ago)

Then, Bitcoins got popular. And I mean really popular. The same Bitcoins I cashed in for pennies were suddenly worth $200! Even more recently, the coins I cashed it at $2 each (when we moved), were worth $1200! And I had none. Not one. Granted, when we needed money for moving, or for Christmas, it was nice to have them. But had I saved them? We’d have tens of millions of dollars now. Tens. Of. Millions.

Yes, I’m still mining. I took time off for the past 6 months after we moved back, because I couldn’t afford the electricity (that’s the cost to create Bitcoins, electricity usage), but I’m mining again. Thanks to the way Bitcoin works, its popularity means that my efforts are far less profitable. My mining rigs earn about $4 a day now. It’s the time of year that many of us, at least I, think about money. Christmas is expensive, and all the moving, career changing, etc., has taken us to the bottom of the barrel. Those Bitcoins would be awful nice…

I’m having a hard time letting it go. That’s really unlike me, as I have so much to be grateful for in life. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve never had any real regrets, and now that I do, I don’t quite know how to deal with it. Thus this post. I’m a writer, and writing is how I deal with things. I figure it’s better than drowning my woes in a bottle of Scotch. 🙂

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays, everyone. Try to live in the moment, and not dwell on the past. I’ll do the same. 🙂