Friendly PSA: Whether you have lost or won this year – the fact you are even investing puts you ahead of 99% of most other people.

So I spend a lot of time reading up on financial news because it's something that interests me. Sometimes I feel fomo when I miss out; sometimes I feel like a moron when I take a risk and invest in something and it blows up; sometimes I feel boring for just buying spy every month and thinking it's not enough. Whatever the case- I know I'm not alone when I feel like I'm not doing enough to DCA or I feel like shit when I'm not instantly rich or something. I always somehow think I'm behind.

And then I talk to the people in my life.

My boyfriend has absolutely no clue how stocks works and thinks it's just a hobby.

My roommate doesn't like to talk about investing with me because he says “finance people are insufferable” and so he sworn off ever learning about investing…ever.

My Dad is always fearful the market's going to “collapse any day now” and that I need to buy gold.

My friends don't even know what a 401k or Roth IRA or Brokerage Account even are.

And strangers I meet often jokingly dismiss the stock market as “horoscopes but for men.”

This is who most people are. This is what most people think when you talk to them about the stock market. They don't know what DCA is. They don't know what an ETF is. They don't know what Cost Basis is. Or EPS or Growth or Value or Small/Large Cap or Diversification. When they see the stock market they see a bunch of random letters, a number that changes every second, and a scary line that goes up and down. It doesn't matter if you even have just 5$ in the market…just knowing even one of the previous terms I mentioned above means 99% of those you see around aren't at your level. At best, they are opting for some broad market index fund that they put money into every month that a financial advisor told them to do and if you were to ask them why they do it they really don't even know.

You are ahead of the curve. Take risks where you can if that's your thing; preserve most of what you have intelligently through the passed down wisdom we have all heard before such as diversification and steady inputs every month. In this regard, you are the 1%.