The Psychological Adventure of Sunk Cost
It came across my desktop as a headline of “Sunk Cost Fallacy” with a photo of a stack of money bills. I almost didn’t click on the link to continue reading since I am not a financial expert and find most business reading material of economic non-importance, i.e. boring. However, I did continue forward to click and read.
Just a couple of weeks prior to this particular day when I had the option of finding WiFi (humorously pronounced “weefee”) to read any necessary emails while traveling abroad, I was living my own sunk cost fallacy without my knowledge. After covering almost 300 miles by foot, successfully working my way seeing sunlight through the bottom of my shoe soles of both of the only two pairs of shoes I packed, contemplating the need for an additional pair of shoes - the niggling in the back of my mind began - again. I noted that my thoughts tended to venture closer and closer to home more often as the weeks, then months were passing on this extended adventure and respite of mine. That day, I spoke about the thoughts aloud, not keeping them to myself. As if a contagion, a couple of days later, my husband pronounced early one morning, “I’m homesick”. Therapist hat on, I hesitantly asked: “Tell me more…” So, we spent the better part of the day deciding if these were fleeting feelings of ours that would pass, feelings that perhaps we should push through as our psyches are just adjusting to the freedom in which we are currently able to live, perhaps the feelings were ideas of flight from the very place we belong (away from all that we are used to, exposure to new ideas, acknowledging the communication barriers, and the cultural differences), or maybe, just maybe, we really did belong “home”.
Here’s where this whole sunk cost fallacy comes in (again, new terminology to me until today, when I finally clicked on the link and continued reading). We explored all of the possible reasons why we should stay versus why we should return home shy of the three months we had originally intended and already planned. In short, this economic idea of “sunk cost” from my understanding is not just an economic explanation for our decision-making, but just as much an emotional, social, and psychological process. My husband and I were most definitely a part of this experimental research without our knowledge! We bantered (amicably) the investment of time and money we have in our adventure, what cost savings we could recover and at what point upon our return could we recover what we have financially invested, at what cost would it be to return home (with our tail between our legs) that we couldn’t stick it out, but what about the money spent, and at what cost would it be to continue spending money on experiences that were no longer fulfilling us or creating smiles, but rather just because we had a return date prescribed, and oh, what would our friends and family think?!!
In Sunk Cost Fallacy, (my translation of the article) we oftentimes make bad decisions by truly believing that the investment of time, money, or social (and, work) commitments to others is more important than our own wellbeing and necessary self nurturing. Now, I’m beginning to understand this terminology in relation to our previous cerebral experience just 2 weeks ago.
And then, we thought of the dog! Game changer!
We very much missed our crazy coonhound snuggling and taking up real estate between us and we very much missed our children (who by this time, inadvertently were sending SOS signals by suffering week long fevers of Lyme Disease diagnoses, major concussion on a “slip and slide” accident, questioning the prospect of graduate school, handling relationship difficulties, and then more fevers). Suddenly, all of the questioning made no sense and the only sensible option was to find “WeeFee” and create a flight change itinerary and forget about the exorbitant cost to “enjoy the experience of returning home” instead of parasailing the Alps!
Remembering my favorite lines of all in Paulo Coelho’s, The Alchemist, the old man tells the boy: “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon”, and again later the boy is told by the alchemist, “…wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure”…..perhaps what brings happiness and respite after all sits right before me everyday, not in a land far away, or within an ancient chapelle, or the interior of a bastide protected from battles fought centuries before, or on a trail to yet another crumbled hilltop village, but in the normal space I occupy and refer to as home with little sunk cost to contemplate. And so I reflect as we return home to our treasures and the same proposal we embarked on this adventure: with our “no regret” policy, lots of smiles, 2,000+ photos, more love, greater appreciation, so many memories, new friends, and two less pairs of shoes, as I remain buckled into seat 42K as instructed, clicking my heels Dorothy style from Wizard of Oz, and chanting, “there’s no place like home”…..