I had a similar experience with it, with the difference that I've tried everything else before hodling.
I went through phases of mining, cloud mining, altcoin trading, altcoin holding, bitcoin trading and finally holding bitcoin. Out of all the activities and years of experience I can honestly tell you that if you have time and energy you can try trading bitcoin, if not hold bitcoin. The rest is going to wear you out and it's going to be like walking through a dungeon full of traps. If you manage to avoid them all, things like trading or mining may be good for you. If you want to be safe and just make money with minimum risk buy and hold bitcoin. Don't wait to buy the dip, just buy because trying to buy the dip makes you hold money on exchanges, lose time and energy trying to find the right moment. It's not worth it if you ask me.

There's no best time to buy Bitcoin. Somebody who entered the market in 2020 will tell you that 2019 was a better time to buy and someone who came in 2021 will regret not being here during the covid crash.