The Lie That Keeps Us Stuck

The Lie That Keeps Us Stuck

There is a special kind of stubbornness that shows up only after we have already invested something.

Time. Money. Effort. Pride.

That stubbornness has a name. The sunk cost fallacy.

The sunk cost fallacy is the belief that we should continue something simply because we have already put something into it, even when quitting would clearly be the better option.

In plain Kentucky Dude terms, it sounds like this.

“I have already spent too much money to stop now.”
“I have been doing this too long to quit.”
“I have come this far.”

The problem is simple. The past cost is gone. It cannot be recovered. And yet we let it steer future decisions like it still matters.

The concept comes from economics.

A sunk cost is any cost that has already been paid and cannot be undone.

Rational decision making says sunk costs should be ignored.

Only future costs and future benefits matter.

Humans are not rational.

We hate waste. We hate admitting mistakes. We hate the feeling that quitting means losing. So we keep going. Not because it is smart, but because stopping feels worse.

This shows up everywhere.

• People stay in jobs they hate because they have been there too long.

• They stay in relationships that are clearly broken because of shared history.

• They keep drinking the way they always have because that is how weekends work.

• They keep watching bad movies because they already paid for the ticket.

The fallacy does not care how smart you are. It only cares that you are human.

January is when this fallacy gets exposed.

Dry January forces people to ask whether drinking is something they enjoy or something they feel committed to because it has always been there.

PTO planning asks whether work is consuming time because it must or because it always has. Even alcohol itself fits. It is the oldest drug in the world, which makes it feel untouchable.

Longevity gets mistaken for legitimacy.

The sunk cost fallacy is powerful because it disguises itself as loyalty, grit, and consistency. Those are good traits when pointed in the right direction. They are destructive when aimed at something that is no longer serving you.

The real question is not “How much have I already invested?”

The real question is “If I were starting today, would I choose this again?”

That question does not erase the past. It frees the future.

And that is the whole point.