It's easy to look at the math and what has happened in the markets and call ETH staking dumb...  It's not like Bitcoin has done much better...  Personally, I had no intention of ever owning ETH and found myself with some (not a ton) that had accumulated through various means over the years.  I started staking it because why not?  Would I have been better off selling everything at the exact top, sure.  Is that realistic?  No.  I believe that ETH will return and hit new highs again someday.  Maybe then when you look back you'll realize that you weren't making a couple hundred bucks a month, but a couple thousand.  At that point it will look dumb not to have staked.

Crypto is fun.  Do all the things.  Stake.  Mine.  Spend.  Stack.  Do it all!  Just don't try to make money trading it back and forth.