I find myself struggling with sunk cost these days. I preach the concept to my friends and family all the time. That decisions you made in the past, unless they have a direct bearing on future events, aren’t relevant to your decision making process. Rationally, this should reduce the guilt, or the regret, over doing the best thing there was to do at the time. Realistically, though, sunk cost decisions can impact our future, through that same guilt or regret. The choices we make in the past do provide a roadmap for the decisions we make in the future. We don’t want to feel that regret in the future, or the pain, and because of this, we create new pathways that allow us to choose better in the future. Personally, it’s hard to integrate the choices I’ve made in the past with what is happening now. I can only keep trying!
Margo Bergman
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stayathomeeconomist 