“Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a long time making it.” ~ Unknown
We’re not so far removed from toddlers, no matter how old we think we are. Have you ever tried to convince a toddler they’re wrong about something? They are unconvincable, even when the facts — there is no monster under the bed — are plain. They’ll invent reasons to support whatever nonsense they’ve latched onto so they don’t have to admit they were wrong. It’s kind of entertaining when they’re three (unless they’re yours, in which case it’s mildly infuriating). It’s a behavior that’s not at all entertaining when they’re 30. Or 60. Or 90.
Why do we do this? Why do we let ourselves get stuck in an error loop, sometimes for years? Is it just ego? That would make sense, toddlers are just discovering their independence and ego comes along like a side dish. (Think about this … with every leap in independence, ego increases accordingly. And then, when we start losing independence, humility usually comes.)
I think there’s more to it than just ego, though. I know too many people (and have been one) who know they’re wrong, know they’ve made a grievous mistake, and are miserable. All it would take to escape the misery is admitting error. And yet they sit, like a kid in a dirty diaper, giving themselves a rash and stinking up the room, for months and years, even decades. It’s apparently easier to be miserable than it is to acknowledge our own foibles.
The more time, effort, money, emotion, thought we’ve invested in that mistake, the harder it is to reverse course. It’s referred to as the “sunk cost fallacy: the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.”
It’s like getting a degree in something only to discover you loathe the subject as a job, but refusing to look for a new career because you already spent too much on tuition. Or staying in a bad relationship and getting married because “you already dated for so long.” It’s staying through a movie you despise because you already paid for the tickets. It’s making absurd excuses for bad behavior because that’s less painful than having to reframe your narrative.
I wonder how many wars have been spurred on by the sunk cost fallacy?
Is there a cure? Not exactly, but there is, reportedly, a way out. Forget what’s in the past and make decisions based solely on the present and future. It doesn’t matter what you’ve invested — attention, money, time, emotion — if you’re on the wrong path, get off sooner, not later. How rarely we do this.
It’s easier said than done, of course, like most things that are worth doing.