Food for Thought || Sunk Cost Fallacy.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a Behavioural Economics term to describe a type of irrational decision-making. It describes a situation where someone is more likely to continue putting resources into a failing business or investment *BECAUSE* of the previous amount of time or money they have spent on it. It's like those moments in Dragon's Den where even the dragons don't know what to say, faced with an inventor who has spent years working on a design, remortgaged the house, and can't face the reality that it's just not going to work.
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But this kind of cognitive bias shows up a lot in everyday life too. Especially when thinking about ending something that isn't working anymore, whether that's a job, a friendship or a marriage.
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'But I've been there/known them so long' is often a reason given for not ending something we know is over. There are usually a few things happening here:
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1. Fear of shame - we want to avoid the embarrassment of having made a 'mistake', especially a public one.
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2. Avoidance of loss - to finally make the decision to walk away means facing powerful feelings of loss and sadness, very often people will choose to stay quietly miserable rather than deal with loss.
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3. Fear of the unknown - often misery is comfortable simply because it is familiar and we can feel anxious about the prospect of change and starting something new.
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But, first of all, there is no shame in having done something for a while and later realising it is no longer right for you. As we grow and mature, the things/people/ideas that made sense for us at 20 might no longer make sense at 30. It doesn't make that time pointless, it's just evidence of your development. And sometimes the reason you got in to the situation in the first place was not healthy, in which case, getting out of it is a good idea.
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Endings are often sad but they don't have to be brutal. If it is safe to, facing an ending head on, with your eyes open is a sign of emotional maturity.
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Finally, life is not a zero-sum game, it's not 'win or lose', there is learning and meaning to be drawn from all our experiences whether they turn out the way we intended or not.