Sunk costs revisited

Seth Godin on sunk costs:

Everything that happened yesterday, and the yesterdays before that, is real. It happened.

Perhaps it’s the hard work you did to earn a degree, or a significant error that cost you and others a great deal. Maybe it’s a community you chose to join, or one that you failed to embrace.

All of these costs are sunk. We can’t undo them. They’re a gift from our former selves.

But like all gifts, we don’t have to accept them.

We can say to that former self, “no thank you.”

“I know how hard you worked to get that law degree, but I don’t have room for it on the shelf.”

“I know you paid a price for that transgression, but that price is paid and I have work to do.”

No thank you.

We think that we are finally aware of sunk costs, only to realize that we aren’t.