My BTC was stolen, sharing my thoughts

I think this is my first post here. Long time lurker, but a shame it had be this kind of post.Welp, that's it folks. All the BTC I had to to my name has been stolen on 11/13.After checking my wallet a couple of days ago, I noticed an unfamiliar transaction that sent my remaining Bitcoins to some address on 11/13.Not sure if it's a good idea to post the transaction ID, but I suppose I could if it sheds light on anything.After I saw this, a rush of emotions came over me - despair, hopelessness, I had a pit in my stomach that was so dense, I nearly wanted to throw up. I could barely eat or sleep the day after. Even though it's been a few days now, those feelings are still very strong and I feel they probably will be for a long time. I keep waking up and checking the wallet hoping it's some sort of mistake, but it's real unfortunately.It took a while for me to process through the situation just enough to put some thoughts together for this post, but I guess the point of this post is two fold:It's a bit cathartic for me to be able to get some thoughts outI hope that other people learn from my mistake - coin holders need to take security seriously. Be patient, learn about security of your coins, and enact what you learn. Be diligent. Convenience is an enemy of security.The coins I had were originally mined back some time in 2013 if I remember correctly.I really had no idea what I was doing at the time, but a friend turned me on to mining and I figured why not, may as well put my GPUs to use for something else while I wasn't gaming. When he first told me about mining, I thought hmm - I bet all this computing power is going to something like helping the government crack into things, but after some light reading on Bitcoin - it stood out to me as something special, so I decided to do some research, joined a pool and started mining some coins not long after.Over the years, I sort of forgot about them and they stayed within my Bitcoin core wallet what I had used originally when mining, but three to four years ago my interest in the technology renewed and I really started reading more into the details of the technology and talking about it with coworkers.However, after some time I noticed that the Bitcoin core client was becoming quite cumbersome having to store all of the blockchain data and I had moved on to laptops with less storage available than my old desktop and so I started looking at some of the more modern wallets and landed on Electrum.I started using Electrum and it seemed to do the job well for what a wallets was designed for. I guess it's my mistake for not keeping up with the real (security related) news surrounding Bitcoin and wallets and various hacks and scams. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure I fell victim to a phishing attack vector within the Electrum wallet and possibly was led to download an update from a location other than the main site (github releases section seems to be faintly a thing that I remember). It was either this, or maybe my system was compromised some other way - either way it's a painful lesson in how not keep your coins secure. I really should have just put my coins into cold/offline storage.It's a real shame, I was really proud of owning these coins having mined them originally myself and I was hoping one day that I could split them between my two sons when they were old enough to understand and appreciate the technology in 18-20 years and who knows how widespread the technology and understanding will be by then. I feel like I failed them.I'm not really sure where to go from here, still trying to work through that. I've definitely been reading up more on security and how to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again should I find my way back into crypto. I wish I would have taken security more seriously up front, it ended up being a very costly mistake not doing so.I don't have nearly the disposable income to get back what I have lost. At the current price, it'd take years upon years, and it's highly unlikely that the price will retreat significantly. However, I truly still do believe in the technology, I just find it a bit sad that the main way to participate now is to convert USD to BTC - I wish mining was still a thing for the average person.Stay diligent and vigilant people, don't become lax like me. Read up on methodologies and practices for keeping your coins secure. Be patient and take the time to make sure things are done right.If this post helps even one person to take their coins more seriously and read up on better security, then I suppose it would be worth it getting these thoughts out. I wouldn't wish the feelings that I've experienced over the past couple of days on anyone, they are truly feelings of despair and regret. via /r/Bitcoin https://bit.ly/37FUL1j