BEING HUMAN (DARK HUMOR)
Made A Painful Mistake? Double Down!
How to be a constant winner
We all make mistakes, some of them really painful. Some we understand that they are mistakes only after considerable investment of time and resources. One way of handling this is to acknowledge the problem and at least cut our losses short. But who wants to be a loser when you can be a constant winner? Right, just read on.
Instead of accepting any losses, which would make you a loser and look generally bad, continue trying in the hope that “things will turn around”. This is exactly what I have done with my PhD, and I think I have now become an expert at this. So, I can offer a set of steps you can also take whenever you see you have done a costly mistake that is very difficult to rectify, so you feel you are on top.
Step 1: Wake up one day and realise that this indeed is going nowhere
Up to this point, you have managed to push this realisation away from consciousness rather well. Through a combination of hope and magical thinking, you managed to believe that things will turn out ok, that some type of unlikely something will happen that will set things right. Maybe your professor will at last take an interest in your work and offer some helpful advice? Maybe this side-hustle you are doing will gain traction and give you an escape route?
But, one day, you wake up with the deep feeling that these are just self-delusions. That this is not going to work out. You indeed have invested years of work that mean nothing.
Step 2: Panic
Ah, panic, fight-flight-freeze, our deep connection to our evolutionary roots! Panic is a primal reaction, deeply embedded in our evolutionary psyche. And why should we fight it? Can we fight it? I do not think so. So, let your heart race, palms sweat, and eyes dart around the room. Maybe indulge in a bit of wild pacing while frantically looking at an imaginary calendar and calculating how many years of your life you’ve essentially ‘wasted’.
Step 3: Do not take any drastic action
As the panic sets in, there might be an urge to drop everything and just run away or dramatically announce your resignation on a group chat. That would be a flight panic response. But wait! True aficionados of the Sunk Cost Fallacy know even better: the freeze panic response! Instead of making drastic decisions, choose to wallow a bit more in the comfort of inertia. A little inaction, especially when action is most needed, will serve you quite well.
Step 4: Continue in a semi-nihilistic depressive limbo
What’s better than dealing with problems head-on? Dancing around them in a shadowy waltz of despair. Embrace the void. Let the existential dread wash over you and question the very essence of your existence. Why are you here? What’s the point? Oh, and occasionally indulge in imagining alternate realities where you’re the successful version of yourself.
Step 5: Keep going through the motions, indefinitely
By now, you might have lost all zeal, but hey, why stop there? Keep doing what you’re doing, albeit with 10% of the enthusiasm and 110% of the cynicism. Show up, but just barely. Make witty and veiled spiteful comments. Bask in the delusion that all this does anything. This way, you still get points for being ‘present’ while your soul continues its prolonged vacation. And keep secretly hoping that somehow things will turn around (without you having to do any drastic of course! — see step 3)
Instead of all these, of course, you could accept your losses and realise that you can cut them short. Master up the courage to say to yourself “I made a mistake”. Endure the pain and neither freeze nor exit in panic. Acknowledge the fact that indeed, this has set you back a lot, in skill, in time, financially. Acknowledge that you have to try again, from a starting point that is considerably worse than ideal, and this going to be painful.
But you can believe in yourself. If you had the strength to go through such a tough situation and survive it, then, if you can find a better context, a new more healthy environment, you will be able to achieve a lot and much faster than you fear.
You are not the same person as the one that went into this situation in the first place, you are more resilient, you now realise what you can and cannot do, and understand that your strengths must be coupled with a nurturing environment for them to work.
There will be losses, this is certain and cannot be avoided. It is never too late to acknowledge this and craft a better situation for yourself.
Or, you can block the realisation of any losses and be a constant winner! Which of course is far better, since who wants to be a loser? So, ignore all I said in the previous paragraphs, and just follow my five steps and you are off to the races!
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