Sunk Costs are Irrelevant.

It's Thursday night once again...which means that I spent it with Neil and Brady. Seriously, IMPACT is a blast. It's been so cool to get to know Brady--he's so comfortable with us now. We've gone bowling, made mock apple pie, read books, gone to the Nickelcade...I keep forgetting to bring my camera with me. Someday I'll remember. Hopefully. Today, we visited the PETCO and got ice cream (strawberry cheesecake sundae, ftw--you can't get much better than that). On the PETCO, will I ever buy carob chip cookies for my pet? Probably not. Do ferrets stink? You bet. Rat tails are still as ugly as ever. And on a side note, I still despise spiders. I especially despise tarantulas. Don't even get me started on snakes. Ugh. Good thing Ranger is so cute, or I probably wouldn't like her either. Just kidding--I actually love that dog.

Getting back to the point, I get so busy with life that I sometimes think, "Wow, I could really use this Thursday night to study, read through student papers, clean the apartment, and so on." But every time Thursday night rolls around, and I put those things off to go do this instead, I always return to my apartment with the biggest smile ever. I'm always so much less stressed out--which rationally, shouldn't make sense.

Because the truth is, despite my love for being busy, I can get really stressed out about not getting everything done well and in time. My roommate probably knows this more than anybody else--but she's awesome and deals with me anyways (Thanks, Haley). This week is one of those stressful weeks.  But tonight as Neil and I were discussing our busy schedules, he said something that really hit me: "Sunk costs are irrelevant."

Thanks to my high school econ class and half a semester of Econ110, I knew what he was talking about. But for those non-Econ majors, here's the Wikipedia definition of a sunk cost: "Sunk costs are retrospective (past) costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered." And in the realm of Economics, they are totally irrelevant. You don't make future decisions based on sunk costs. You can't live your life according to sunk costs. They're irrelevant. Over. You look at the future from the present onward. You look at prospective costs. And let me tell you, that's a lot less stressful than basing your life off of your sunk costs.

So, I'm going to study. I'll do my homework. Go to work. Fulfill my callings. But in this entire rational (and very irrational) equation of life, I'm also going to factor in the Panda Express, strawberry cheesecake sundaes, and Chuck marathons. Don't mind if I also throw in Impact, Choose to Give, and travel planning. I'll even toss in running and doing my laundry and cleaning my room. It won't be perfect. But when everything doesn't go my way, I'm calling that a sunk cost. It's over and done. After all, I'm not afraid of a few red lines in my ledger right now. I'm going for long-term profit. I'm making my decisions off prospective costs now.

Yeah. Good-bye old negativity in my life. You're a sunk cost and entirely irrelevant.
:)