One of the challenges of financial planning and investing is keeping a clear head as markets go up and down. We're talking about serious emotions and many financial media pundits fan the flames making it worse.Be assured it is completely normal to feel concerned when the market drops. Feel like you are Spock-like? Let's say you exhibit rigorous Vulcan Logic - there's still your emotional human half! The key is awareness that you're experiencing concern and remind yourself that we expect erratic market moves. It's NORMAL market behavior! Swings in market volatility are NORMAL! No matter how hyped up they get in the Wall Street Journal or on the CNBC channel - it's all hype. We KNOW the market moves unpredictably up and down short term, but predictably up over longer time periods. Yet "despair" can rear it's ugly head.So don't beat yourself up if you feel some concern bordering on despair when large market drops occur. Be like Spock - look at actual data from previous market "corrections" and how the market "pops" at some point after the correction and eventually starts knocking on the doors of new market highs! So far the market has not remained permanently flat or down.Also keep in mind the definition of "market"! Are we talking the Dow Jones, NASDAQ or S&P500 (three popular indices). Those three essentially represent large U.S. companies! What about small, microcap U.S. company stock, large, small international company stock and large, small emerging markets company stock? We tend to ignore all these other parts of the investment universe! And these other asset classes outside of large U.S. exhibit higher returns, albeit with higher volatility.During the lost decade (1/1/2000-12/31/2009) the S&P500 was down (-9.1%) - but our model portfolios with 40-100% stock were up from about 54-80%! What kind of crazy investing were we doing? Just the opposite! It was prudent diversification - some would call it boring! In investing, prudence and diversification WIN WIN WIN. Remember that! Is beating the S&P500 by 63-89 percentage points over 10 years boring? I call it exciting and profitable!Note that it is a common habit by owners of 401(k) plans to invest mostly in large U.S. stock funds because they "understand" them. Unfortunately the lack of diversification lowered their returns.In the non-fiduciary camps of the brokerages, and insurance companies selling investment products like annuities, they take advantage of despair to sell their products that lock you in to a low rate of return, while they collect large commission checks. They prey on that emotion - I think they allow themselves to be drawn into the emotion because it helps them sell their products.The reality is that market drops won't hurt you in retirement - IF you have adequate cash reserves. You need to have reserves so that you don't have to sell when the market is down - and even better only sell while it is at a relative high or moving higher.If you're still saving for retirement, then each market drop is to be celebrated as you are purchasing your investments - your future retirement funds at a nice discount. It's a SALE - a BARGAIN!And whether you're my client or not - I am available to talk if the despair of a down market is weighing on you. Seriously - feel free to call.What would Spock say? (WWSS?) "Live Long and Prosper - logically the market will return to setting new highs, but even a Vulcan cannot predict the actual path. Keep saving and investing to grow wealth. in retirement, protect your portfolio with 3-5 years of cash reserves."Thank you Spock for your wise words!