Hill Climbing and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

"I will never be back at the beginning. Because at the beginning, I didn't know what I know now, and I didn't experience what I have experienced. So I can be a centimeter ahead of the starting point, but I will never be set back to where I started."

Those are the words I shared with my therapist yesterday when sharing how I felt about my transition into college, and how, despite having a semester under my belt, I still have days where I feel out of place. This is not about fitting in, nor college, nor being a centimeter ahead of a starting point- this is about cognitive psychology. In my Introduction to Cognition lecture about two weeks ago, we were learning about problem solving, and how people use- and fail to use- heuristics when solving problems. My professor, who is absolutely amazing, gave an analogy for the hill climbing heuristic.

Let's say a baby is trying to pull their stuffed animal through the bars of their crib. They can't get it through, because they have both hands on the toy, and no matter how hard they pull, they are never going to break through the bars. The baby is screaming and crying, because despite using all of their little baby strength and rage on that stuffed animal, the bar of their crib is in the way. An adult knows that in order for the baby to achieve the desired goal of getting their toy to the outside of their crib, they have to release one hand from one leg of the stuffed animal and simply pull it with their other hand in between the gaps of the bars, because trying to penetrate the bars with their baby strength is far less practical. However, in the baby's mind, if they use both hands and more effort, they will get the toy.

You are the baby. I am the baby too. As humans, we often choose the most direct path to achieve a goal, even if this direct path is less practical, and not actually attainable. A better analogy might be this: if you are at the top of one mountain, and you want to get to a taller mountain slightly in the distance, you can not simply jump from the mountain you are standing on to the mountain in the distance. Rather, you have to climb down from the mountain you are on, walk to the farther mountain, and then climb up again. Although you may feel as if you are moving downwards, backwards, and away from the highest height you want to be at, it is quite literally impossible to reach a new peek if you do not abandon the current mountain you are on.

This is the hill climbing heuristic. According to my lecture notes, sometimes, we have to move backwards in our problem space in order to move closer to our end goal. The issue lies in people having a reluctance to do so. I will apply this to my own life, and then we can apply it to yours. It took me weeks of soul searching to realize that I did not want to continue to competitively debate and in college. I felt like quitting something I was so naturally good at, and that brought me so much success in my high school years, was wasting my potential. Was I just not tough enough to stick it out? Not continuing felt like moving backwards. However, if I had not sat with myself and truly took the time to reevaluate my academic goals, I would have never started my own blog nor discovered my passion for psychology. I would have not realized that I love to write as much as I do, and I probably would not have realized that my interest in politics is less about politics itself, but more about people, the systems in which we exist, and the decisions we make based on our conditions. I was once on a very tall mountain of foreign affairs and debate, but I saw a new and more desirable mountain in the distance that was too far to simply jump to. So, I decided to climb down from my existing mountain. Now I am climbing back up, but this time, the mountain is taller, and I am more excited by the view at the top of this mountain than I was by the view atop my previous mountain.

In your life, your mountain may be friendships, a relationship, a job, a sport, a mental battle, or anything else I could possibly list off. If you believe you have seen all that you need to see from that viewpoint, I urge you to climb downwards and free yourself from your fear of moving backwards.

Absolutely, it is easier said than done. "No Fiona, you don't understand. I spent so much time and money climbing to the top of this mountain. I can't climb down now. It will have all been for nothing..." Did you reach the top? Did you get to see the view once you got there? To revert back to how I started this entry- you will never be back at the beginning. When you do start the downwards climb from the top of your current mountain, your foot may eventually hit the ground that you started on when climbing upwards. Still, when you started climbing upwards, you didn't have all of the experience and knowledge that you gained throughout the climb. You did not have the wisdom or insight to decide that that mountain was not a mountain you wanted to conquer. You will never be the same as when you started your journey, because everything that happens to us has the ability to change us with just a little more knowledge, a little more insight, and a little more experience.

That wasted time and money is a sunk cost, or an investment that has been irreversibly spent. This means that whether you continue down your original path or start a new one, you are not getting that sunk cost back. The way I look at it is that sometimes, the results of our sunk costs can almost "repay" us for the irreversible investment in other forms, like the network you make from your college education or the job you get post-grad. Other times, the results of your sunk costs are continuous irreversible investments you will have to make, but these investments are not monetary; they are your time and happiness. Why stay on top of a hill when you don't like the view and there are other hills in sight that can offer you all of the things you once desired in the hill you are on now?

I have many sunk costs from my past. We all have them- relationships, friendships, academic choices, and money spent. (This is neither good nor bad; it is entirely dependent on the situation and context.) We are all somewhere on a hill. Be mindful of the hill you are on. Be forgiving of yourself for the choices you have made. Let go of regret; it changes nothing. It wasn't wasted potential if you were held back from moving upwards.