<prompt> Human: tldr; the thought of losing money Ive worked hard to earn is upsetting. I am having a hard time making the plunge with investing because it feels like a total gamble.I consider myself very risk averse... but more than anything, greedy.Ive spent 1000s of hours perfecting my skills and working side jobs to make extra money. I rarely spend, just hoard in the bank. The thought of losing all those hours of hard work in a few minutes or days because of forces I cannot control is something I struggle with greatly.I have read hundreds of articles, taken investing and finance courses online, and remain unconvinced that the zero sum investing game is anything more than pure and total luck.The obvious problem is that by doing nothing, I am losing money to inflation. Im sure others have this problem. How did you get over it?  <response>: I have read hundreds of articles, taken investing and finance courses online, and remain unconvinced that the zero sum investing game is anything more than pure and total luck.If you think it is a zero sum game you have learned very little from all of that time. Assuming we are talking about investing in conventional equities and bonds, the evidence is extremely clear that investing is not a zero sum game. Active investing is, but you can pretty easily create a passive portfolio which based upon decades of data is extremely unlikely to decrease in value over the long term and is extremely likely to significantly beat inflation.How did you get over it?This is an emotional issue based upon your fearfeelings around money, and I would approach it that way.The right answer is that investing is not a zero sum game, that you are incredibly likely to recover your funds and then some even if we go through a severe recession like 07-08 by remaining in the market, and that with a reasonable portfolio designed with your time horizon in mind you will be fine.The practical answer is that your fear of losing money is probably related to the reason you hoard it in the first place, and that you may need to see a counselor or sit down with someone with good judgement who knows and loves you to talk through what is going on emotionally with you.When feelings like this start to make it hard to make sound financial decisions you need to address them.I would ABSOLUTELY NOT INVEST IN EQUITIES UNTIL THIS IS RESOLVED. If we go through a downturn you would be overwhelmingly likely to recover staying in the markets, but the way people lose their savings is by pulling out when they get scared. Based upon your current feelings, you would probably get scared, sell, and lose your savings out of fear of losing your savings. 