The Sunk Cost Fallacy: Why We Stay in Uncomfortable Situations

Our brain hates many things:

Being wrong

Being in awkward situations

Being rejected

But one thing the brain hates the most is loss. So, it actively tries to avoid those losses, even at the risk of incurring more losses down the line.

This is why we:

• Buy two extra packs of detergent to get that 3 for 2 discount even though we can afford only one pack
• Stay in the horrible job with the toxic boss because quitting is an admission of failure and failure is the height of loss.
• Eat that second tub of ice cream because it spoils tomorrow
• Sit pretty in that abusive 10 years relationship because what will happen to the kids? And what will our IG fans say?

This phenomenon is known as the sunk cost fallacy. We focus much of our decision-making on how and where to focus our time, money, resources, and effort. Sunk costs, like the name implies, are things we have already invested and cannot recoup. It can be something physical, like money and assets, or intangible things like time, emotional energy, and youth. Because the brain focuses on losses, sunk costs are inflated and prioritized, even when staying in the current situation would lead to egregious losses down the line.

Two years ago, a friend and I were discussing our plans for the future; a future that was as foggy and unknowable as a house in a Quentin Tarantino movie. She told me she wanted to go back to study medicine. I was excited for her because medicine was her first love. Unfortunately, man proposed and JAMB disposed and we both ended up studying biochemistry. I was ecstatic that she wanted to chase after—-and capture—that dream. Until she said two words.

I can’t

I was confused. ‘What do you mean by you can’t?’

She smiled, and it tasted of sadness. ‘I am twenty-three already. If I go back to do medicine, I’ll spend six years then another year doing my house job. I’ll be 30. My life would be half-finished and I would have just spent it in school.’

I was unhappy, but I understood what she meant. Medicine was a reality that she saw each time she closed her eyes. Unfortunately, that reality would forever remain a dream.

Like all things, sunk costs are not always bad. It is what motivates me to go to the gym when I don’t feel like it. I remember how much I pay for my membership and next thing, I am there lifting my money’s worth of weights. It can also help you finish that final year in university, even when everything in you wants to quit. However, it is necessary to be aware when your sunk costs are setting you up for vertiginous failures in the future.

Like wearing 100 dollar shoes that make your feet hurt

Staying in abusive and devaluing relationships that leave your emotions bullet-ridden because it’s been years and everyone knows you both as #couplegoals.

Investing some more into a cadaverous business venture just because of all the time and effort you have put in.

Staying in an unfulfilling career (without an exit plan) that makes Mondays seem like a task from Squid game.

All because you feel it’ll pay off in the long run. You keep on digging through the dirt, hoping to find diamonds. Unfortunately, it’s just stones at the end of that road.

I know I am late to the #internationalwomensday party but when you are a woman, every day is women’s day. And as we #breakthebias and reach towards new and better definitions, we should also place an emphasis on unbecoming and the acceptance of losses. It doesn’t matter how much of time, youth, energy, resources, money, emotional and mental real estate you have invested in it. There is liberty in loss. If it is not serving you, let it go.

Like what you read? Check out A Virus More Sinister than Covid and The Age of Instruction and Self-Proclaimed Experts.