Maryanne Frederick
  • Home Page
  • Creative Works
  • Blog
  • About Me

​Maryanne's Blog

Life Costs

6/13/2017

 
Picture
We drove from Arizona to California for a week-long vacation. We had planned to spend two days at an amusement park before moving onto a beach cottage we had reserved. My son has always had trouble with his ears beginning with ear tubes when he was a baby. He suffered badly with motion sickness after one of the first rides of the day. We made the best of the day but did not return for the second day. Thank goodness for phones with internet. We came up with wonderful things to do and had a great time.
 
Behavioral economists would say we were behaving rationally according to a term known as “sunk cost”. We had already paid for the tickets, and would never be able to recover that cost. Did we want to pay twice by doing something that we know wasn’t going to be fun? Life Hack lists other fallacies like this, which we tend to fall for- like eating too much at a restaurant just because we paid for the food. Robert L. Leahy Ph.D., in Psychology Today, has a great article on how to let go of sunk costs. He says our decisions shouldn’t be made looking backward, only forward. If we would have said, “But we paid for two days, we have to go both days.” We would have had a miserable time. Instead, we visited the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum. It was a Tuesday, which happens to be free admission day, so it didn’t cost us anything additional.
 
We might be better off if we can think of our wealth not in terms of money or possessions, but in terms of people and time. What is the best decision going forward for the people involved? Is that how you want to spend your time? The first question tends to be more muddled for me. Sometimes the answer isn’t as straightforward as I would like. The second question is the tie-breaker. It can help to keep looking forward in our decision-making and not backward. For it does not matter how much we have paid  for something or have vested in a relationship, if it isn’t working for our future there is no sense in paying twice.
​
How will you spend your time?


Comments are closed.

    Author
    ​Maryanne Frederick

    What we notice-grows us. Inspiration is all around!

    Categories

    All
    Amazing Places
    Empowerment
    Family
    Inspiration
    Laments

    Archives

    June 2022
    April 2020
    September 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    July 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015

    RSS Feed

    Tweets by MAFAuthor
Proudly powered by Weebly
Photo used under Creative Commons from Lida Rose
  • Home Page
  • Creative Works
  • Blog
  • About Me