This morning, my alarm went off and I was still staring at the mempool, like waiting in line for the subway during rush hour... When there's congestion, you click send, but actually the transaction is queued among a bunch of "pending" ones. Miners/validators don't pick transactions in first-come, first-served order; it's more about how much tip you're willing to give and how smoothly the packaging process goes. So it results in situations like: you think you're first in line, but someone else pays more to cut in line; you keep low-fee transactions stuck for a long time, and the same address might keep bumping you out in succession.

Recently, everyone has been talking about staking unlocks and token unlock calendars. Basically, as soon as the selling pressure anxiety kicks in, the chain becomes more like a ticket sale—suddenly a bunch of people withdraw, swap, or sell at the same time, and the mempool immediately turns into a squeeze. My approach is pretty simple: if you're doing large transactions, don't force your way through that wave. Better to wait two or three blocks, or just think carefully about slippage and fees first. Otherwise, what you see is just "submission successful," but in reality, you're just wasting mental energy in the queue.