“Your fear that leaving this relationship will be a waste of the time you’ve invested in it over these past five years is a psychological trap called a sunk cost fallacy. It’s when you make the irrational decision to stay in a relationship based on your past investment of time, love, work, and energy, rather than on what’s in your best interest going forward. Sunk cost fallacies keep us stuck in the bad thing rather than allowing us to move forward in the direction of something better.” – Cheryl Strayed (from Dear Sugar)
I’ve written about sunk cost fallacies before, but I think this thought bears repeating. Today, is the first day of August and almost the last day of summer. (My husband keeps reminding me that this is not technically true, but the kids from our area go back to school next week and my daughter heads back to college the following week, so in my mind, which has been conditioned to the school calendar for a long, long time, summer is practically over. Remember, much like northerners are usually happy to see the winter end, most of us Floridians feel the same way about summer.) Not only is it the first day of August, but it is also a Full Moon day. Historically, full moons have been thought to be a time of reaping the harvest, and letting all things go that no longer serve us. Full moons have been thought to be times of culmination and of release.
So today, with it being a full moon on August 1st, it is an excellent day to get real with yourself, and ask yourself if you are currently caught up in any psychological traps of the sunken cost fallacy variety. These traps don’t always just relate to romantic and platonic relationships. We can get caught up in sunken cost fallacies related to almost anything: our jobs, the people we go to for services, such as doctors, hair stylists, dry cleaners, etc., a hobby, a volunteer position, where we live, where we vacation, our daily habits . . . . it can apply to almost anything. Basically, we all have areas in our life where things are a little stale and no longer working for us, even if they worked perfectly for us in the past. Just as a lovely little pot is the perfect place to house and to protect a young growing plant, there comes a time when the plant needs to be transplanted to an area where it can better spread its roots, in order to grow and to thrive.
In my own life’s experience and in observing others’ experiences, I’ve noticed that if we hang on too long to anyone or to anything, for no other reason than we have already spent a lot of time, energy, work, resources and emotion, on that situation, eventually the Universe will do the pruning for us, sometimes in a shocking, sudden, dramatic fashion, since we weren’t heeding its constant, growing louder hints from our own intuition, for a long, long time. And then, after the dust settles, we end up landing in this place of wonder and of amazement, because we suddenly see that the drab, dire story which we had been telling ourselves – “There is no other choice/option here”, is clearly false. We were the ones holding the keys to our own options and to our own freedom, the whole time. And this is when we ask ourselves, “Why did I waste so much time and energy staying put?”
Change is scary, but change, as we all well know, is the only real constant in life. By the time we hit middle age, we all are likely to have stories in our histories that prove that the sunken cost fallacy is truly just a mind trick. (Ask me about a money pit house we owned in the Carolinas sometime, if you want your ears burned off.) We are often susceptible to the sunken cost fallacy because of our honest, good intentions, always looking for the benefit of the doubt, our high hopes, and our misguided loyalty that sometimes veers into obstinate stubbornness. We’re human. However, knowing that we are all susceptible to the sunken cost fallacy but also capable of overcoming it, where does it seem to be sinking its teeth into your life? What, in the cupboard of your one life, has gone well over its expiration date? Where in your life, has your intuition been pinging you to change it up? Remind yourself of other times in your life when you finally made a much needed change (or it was made for you), and how the outcome of that change has improved your life immensely. Remind yourself also, that you brought all of the lessons, understandings, and happy memories that came from that prior situation along with you, even after you made the decision to leave it. All is not lost. The biggest trick of the sunken cost fallacy is the idea that just because something is no longer a fit for you, doesn’t mean that you got absolutely nothing for all of the time, energy, emotion and work, you put into it. The most invaluable, precious things in life are the things which we always have with us, the things which no one else can ever take from us – our memories, our knowledge and our wisdom gained, and our strength from fully experiencing life, and processing what those experiences mean to us, going forward.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Love this post. And love the quote. I realize that at one time I was the gambler he’s referring to. My currency wasn’t money; it was effort. When other people weren’t contributing their share, I took it on, determined to keep the ship afloat. I mean, I’d already put so much energy into keeping the ship afloat I couldn’t just let it sink, right? I was successful for a while, which reinforced the idea that I could do all the work myself, so if others opted out, no big deal. I had it covered. Except it wasn’t true. Eventually a day comes when stuff falls apart because one person simply can’t do everything.
Therapy taught me that it’s not my obligation to make up for the shortcomings of others. That was a difficult lesson for me, because I’d been doing multiple jobs for so long that it felt normal. Now I’m better at listening to the clues my body gives me when I’m trying to do too much. When I feel tense, when I begin to procrastinate, when I allow unimportant tasks to consume my time – that’s when I know there is something that I am not dealing with, and it usually turns out to be something that doesn’t belong to me, but I’ve taken it on anyway. It’s become so much easier to let go of what isn’t mine, return the task to its rightful owner, and wish them luck in handling it.
Not always – it’s easy to get caught up in old habits. Recently I was planning a trip and hit roadblock after roadblock. I spun out about it for days, poring over maps and hotel websites, delaying the work that I’d promised my clients in favor of making. this. trip. happen! My wise mother finally pointed out that I was trying to accommodate someone else’s timeline, and bam! There it was again – me working on someone else’s behalf, ignoring that it wasn’t really my job. At that point, I dropped it like a hot potato, and guess what? The world didn’t fall apart! I’m over here doing my thing, and the other person is doing theirs, and neither of us died because the trip went on the back burner. Live and learn.
You have excellent self-awareness, Kelly. I don’t worry about you. You always land on your feet. Thank you for sharing. <3
Thank you for the compliment. I didn’t always have that – I had to work hard for it. I’m still blind in some areas, but I do spend a fair amount of time ruminating on those blind spots and trying to eradicate them.
Right now, I’m editing a book about yoga – not yoga as we know it here in the US, but the full practice of Yog as taught and practiced by the ancients. The author is a true yogini – her stated purpose is to purify herself until there is nothing left of her. No ego, no repression, nothing but pure energy. Reading and editing her work is showing me how far I have come, and how far I still have to go! I have little interest in getting to the pure energy stage, but I can still learn a lot about myself through this project!
If you have a few extra minutes, visit my website. http://www.kellyalblinger.com. I have a new memoir as the featured work, with a short excerpt that I think you will find very moving, as you are so empathic. Send me some feedback via the site after you read it. I respect and trust your opinion.
I just saw this comment, Kelly. Congratulations of making your dream of being an employed writer come true!! I’ll check out the excerpt soon. I hope my other readers will do so, as well. 🙂