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The Sunk Cost Fallacy of Your Career
The life-changing power of not finishing something just because you started it.
I’m a big fan of putting down a book if I don’t like it. Sure, some stories take a while to get into and I’ll give most a good 50-page chance. I don’t even need anything to happen in those first fifty pages! But if the voice of the book and the narrator’s style isn’t clicking, I’m happy to move on. I only have so much time to read for pleasure and when I do I want it to be, well, pleasurable (by which I mean making me cry or laugh or feel utterly gutted and questioning my life).
Last year, I kept track of how many books I read for the first time. This had the unfortunate side-effect of compelling me to finish books that I started even when I didn’t enjoy them. And though I did up my number, I mostly just white-knuckled through a lot of mediocre books. This year (thank god!) I’m back to not tracking. Since Jan, I’ve dipped into passages of old books, bopped around essay collections, and only finished novels I enjoyed. Truly refreshing.
Not feeling the need to finish something just because you started it is one of the most freeing concepts I’ve ever grasped, one that, especially as an inherently competitive person with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, does not come easy, and one that changed how I view my career and, in turn, my entire life.
