My friend called me one day and said that he had broken up with his boyfriend. After that, he was in a low mood. When asked about the situation, he gave me a list of the bad deeds of this bitch. As a poisonous tongue, my reaction was “such a bitch, why should we worry? It’s better to distinguish early.” My friend said that I also understood this truth, but I still felt uncomfortable and reluctant to part with him.
If you’re a former person, you’ve had a bad relationship with her. You know what’s on her mind. But I have a question: why is it so hard to give up when you know that this relationship will not bear fruit and even self torture if it is maintained? Is it because you love too deeply and can’t extricate yourself? Or is it because of moral responsibility to the other party? Or is it due to the pressure of economy, family and even children?
The actual situation is often that I have been used to being with him / her, and I will not be used to or even feel uncomfortable if I am separated. In psychology, this is called “inactivity inertia”. I am used to maintaining the status quo and unwilling to change even if the situation is bad. Behind this “inertia”, in fact, there is also a calculation of how much we should pay. “We have been together for 7 years. I have paid so much for this person. I don’t want to give up.” “I have spent so much time and energy managing this relationship. If I want to break up with him / her, I will lose all my money and have to start over again.”
For modern people who are good at calculation, at the crossroads of an intimate relationship, we will consider a lot to decide whether to go left or right. At this time, many people will look back on the past, look back on the days they spent with each other, and see how much they have paid for this relationship – energy, time, money, and even gone youth. What has been invested in the past is called “sunk cost”. Once you choose to give up, these past investments will become “Titanic” and lie on the bottom of the sea.
The same things are countless in life. You have been engaged in a job for three years, and you are already a skilled mechanic. However, you have never liked the job very much, nor have you got the opportunity to be promoted. However, you have not changed your job for a long time, because you have paid too much in this job. Changing to a new job means starting anew. There are more than 200 pieces of clothes in my mother’s huge wardrobe, but you can see some of them lying there alone like those concubines in the cold palace who will never be pampered again. My mother wears her old three pieces every day and guards her wardrobe. My father has piled up a pile of tools under my bed that will not be used again in a million years. But when I threatened to throw them away, he would have a hundred unwarranted reasons to continue to treasure them: these things will become antiques in the future, and there are many useful things that will not be used when he wants to use them after throwing them away.
Barry In the paradox of decision making, Barry Schwartz cited a good example of field research to illustrate how sunk costs affect people’s decisions. A local theatre performance company provides theatre season ticket subscription services to audiences. People who bought tickets were secretly randomly divided into two groups, one group bought full price tickets and the other group bought discounted tickets. Then the researchers tracked the frequency of ticket buyers watching performances in this quarter. It was found that people who bought full tickets went to the theatre much more frequently than those who bought special tickets. The reason may be that full price ticket buyers will waste more money if they don’t go, and they are more heartbroken than discount ticket buyers. Because for all ticket buyers, not going to the show will cause greater losses and make people feel more regretful. If we analyze it from the perspective of looking forward to the future, we should choose something that makes us feel happier. Then on the day of the performance, we should ask ourselves, “am I better off going out to watch a drama today or staying at home to play dota?”
Winter is coming, and it’s time to skate. Now imagine that you bought two tickets to the skating rink, and then you found that the two tickets were on the same day. One is worth 50 yuan, the other is worth 25 yuan, but the skating rink with 25 yuan is less crowded and the environment is better. Which would you choose? Most people still choose to use the more expensive ice skating tickets. However, skating is a kind of physical and mental activity. Shouldn’t you choose the one that can make you have more fun and happiness?
When we make decisions, especially major decisions, we all hope that we can rationally analyze the situation and make better choices. However, it is impossible to make a wise decision by focusing on the “sunk cost” of a choice and measuring the quality of the decision by how much we have paid in the past. On the contrary, the more unwilling many people are to make changes, the more they invest in it, and then things will develop in a worse direction. Only by looking into the future and looking at the impact of this event on the future can we help you make a more thoughtful decision.
Back to the original decision about feelings. What determines whether two people go on is whether they can live a happy life in the future, not how much they have invested. After all, the past is over, and the days ahead are still long.
Leave a Reply