[PopAlongKid]

>Be honest, who here has actually lived through a major dip and not been tempted to smash that "sell" button?

Honestly, I've lived through four (1987[0], dot-com, 2008 recession, 2020 coronavirus) and was not tempted. For the first two, I was much too far away from retirement to worry about it, and for the third, I was still over ten years away from even beginning to think about retirement distributions, and because of my experience with the first two, again was not tempted. The fact that my investments for much of that time were in pre-tax accounts helped me avoid feeling some pain as well.

Nowadays, I try to keep, in addition to an emergency fund, about a year's worth of retirement distributions in money market equivalents, even inside my IRA.

[0]My employer started a 401k plan prior to 1987