The Years You Already Spent Don't Owe You a Good Ending

Originally shared in Tuesday Notes on June 2, 2026.

This is the last issue in the bias series. Six weeks, six quiet ways your brain has been making decisions without completely consulting you.

I saved this one for last on purpose.

There's a version of this bias that's easy to spot. The movie you keep watching even though you're not enjoying it, because you're already an hour in. The restaurant dinner you finish even though it's not good, because you paid for it (and God forbid you complain to the waitress 😬).

But the version that actually costs you something looks quieter than that. It's the career path you've stayed on because of how long it took to get there. The friendship you keep showing up to because of your shared history, even though the person you are now wouldn't choose this dynamic from scratch. The project you keep investing in because of how much you've already put in, even though the version of you who started it wanted something different.

And then there's the one I think about most.

The identity you keep performing and portraying because you've spent years building it.

You've always been the ambitious one. The strong one. The reliable one. The one who has it together. You've put real time into becoming that person, into being seen that way. And so changing, even when you've outgrown it, feels like erasing the investment. Like betraying the version of you that people have come to expect.

The sunk cost isn't always about what you've done. Sometimes it's about who you've convinced the world you are.

Why Your Brain Does This

Kahneman spent decades documenting how humans feel losses more acutely than equivalent gains. Losing something that cost you three years feels worse than gaining something worth three years feels good. So your brain, trying to protect you from the pain of loss, keeps you moving forward. It frames quitting as losing what you put in. It never asks whether what's ahead is actually worth having.

This is why the sunk cost fallacy isn't a sign of weakness. It's your loss aversion doing its job, it's just pointing in the wrong direction.

The Reframe That Actually Helped Me

Sunk cost isn't evidence that you should stay. It's evidence that you cared and gave your all. You put in the years because it mattered to you. That's not nothing. But it also doesn't obligate you to a future that no longer fits.

The question I eventually learned to ask, and it's uncomfortable enough that I still avoid it sometimes, is this: if I were starting fresh today, with no history, no investment, no identity tied up in this, would I still choose it?

If the answer is no, the years behind you are not a reason to keep going. They're just the cost of learning what you now know.

Leaving isn't wasting what you put in. It's refusing to waste what comes next.

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Tuesday Brain Snack

In a 1985 study, Hal Arkes and Catherine Blumer gave participants a scenario: you've accidentally bought two ski trips for the same weekend. One cost more. One you're more excited about. Which trip do you go on?

Most people chose the expensive one. Even though the money was already spent either way.

Arkes and Blumer called this the sunk cost effect. Four decades later it's still running quietly in the background of decisions you think you're making freely.

What would you choose if the cost weren't part of the calculation?

This wraps up the bias series. Next week, something new!

Until next Tuesday,

much love, Claudia ✨