Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build . . .” (Nehemiah 2:20, ESV)
Last week I was driving home from vacation with my family. Our plan was to drive from Chicago to New Jersey in a single day. We’ve done it before and this would not be the first time. But on this particular day, we were making slow progress. There was road construction, car accidents, and the kids seemed to need more frequent potty stops.
As it got later in the afternoon my wife suggested we get a hotel room. But I had my heart set on getting home and sleeping in my own bed. We only had five more hours to go and I thought it could not get worse than it had already been.
We plodded on. But about two hours later we hit traffic jams of all traffic jams. We were left on the highway for more than an hour, hardly moving. It ended up taking much more than five hours to get home. Lesson learned! Listen to your wife.
The problem was that I was so invested in getting home on the same day, that I failed to let go. We had already driven the bulk of the way. And I didn’t want to give up because we seemed so close. But the reality was we were so far away. It would have been so much more enjoyable to have stopped, let the kids swim in the hotel pool, and get a restful nights sleep.
There is a name for this. It is called sunk cost bias. The idea of sunk cost bias is that when we continue to invest ourselves in a losing proposition for no other reason than we have already invested ourselves. So we try to invest more to recoup our loses.
The response to sunk cost bias is to practice zero based budgeting. This is to take our finances, our calendar, our commitments and start over. Where are you are investing time, money, and energy? What is it that is making you continue to hold on to those things? Make every life investment prove it’s value before you continue in it. There are many things where you are not going to get back the investment you already made. Trying to do so is a fool’s errand.
Reflection
- Where do you see sunk cost bias in your life?
- How can you practice zero based budgeting with your time, money, and energy?
Prayer
Lord, I continue to hold on to things that I should have let go of long time ago. But I hold on tight out of fear of loss. Help me to let go of the non-beneficial commitments in my life. Give me wisdom to keep the first things first. Amen.
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