In defence of GREED

So it is a historical moment to be remembered isn't it, this global financial turmoil which saw our own STI dropped a whopping 15% in just a week diving below 2000 with no end in sight.
One year ago when reviewing the performance of my equity portfolio, I prided myself over an annualised return of >20% per annum over the 4 year period when I started to invest in equities in a more serious way. At that time I almost wanted to liquidate some bonds to be more "pro-active" in managing my money.
Yesterday my equity portfolio performance dropped to a meagre 4% annualised return over the same 5 year period , i.e. ALL THE TROUBLE FOR NOTHING. My heart ached when I thought of the opportunity lost. If only I had liquidated everything one year ago! To make matters worse I also succumbed to some pressure from cold and soft selling by bank RMs, putting a bit of money into "alternative investments" they call it. I am now holding my breath on these. Ahh...a very good lesson on GREED I reckoned. But hold on... was I?
One year ago if you walked into any bank just to deposit a cheque or update your bank book a bank officer will offer to help you and then preached about negative return when your money does not generate returns higher than the inflation rate. If I do not recall wrongly, there were also repeated articles written by financial planners who advised investing your money in unit trusts (managed by experts) to ensure sufficient returns for retirement. Then there were constant reminders that no one can time the market and one should always invest for long term. With all these brain washing and coupled with some nasty experiences of watching your stocks defying gravity everytime you cashed out, who can accuse me of being GREEDY not to take profit one year ago???
In retrospect I might be more of being stupid than being greedy. See, if I have followed Warren Buffet's advice, to invest or stay invested when you see value, I would have gotten out of stocks which seemed ridiculously overvalued THEN. The fact that I did not can only be explained by 1) laziness to do serious research and 2) underlying GREED. So can't run away also GREEDY lah.