EWOT Goggles #6

Earlier today, I was at the gym working out. My roommate, Steve, also happened to be at the gym but he was doing a separate workout.

We both arrived at the gym at around the same time, so we were ultimately on the same schedule. I finished about ten minutes before him, however.

Before leaving, I went up to Steve to say bye, but he told me I should wait 10 minutes for him to be done his full body workout and then, I could do a forearm workout with him.

I agreed to stay and wait for him to be done so I could do Steve's forearm workout.

I waited about 10 or so minutes and Steve was not yet done. He said he would be soon. But I didn't have that much time to spare because I had to go finish homework and take advantage of some free time I had in my schedule.

At this point, I started asking myself what I should do: stay or leave. My mind initially told me to stay and continue to wait- I had already waited 10 minutes, so I might as well continue to wait because if I leave without doing the forearm workout, then I effectively wasted my time.

But then I thought back to something we learned in economics class last week:

• Sunk Costs: resources that are not recoverable at all when I make my decision

I thought back to the story Prof. Rizzo shared in class about having a girlfriend for 5 years. He talked about how if a guy wants to break up with his girlfriend of five years, he should do so. Part of his thought process shouldn't be that he should stay with his girlfriend because if he breaks up with her, he would have wasted the last five years of his life.

In both instances, the time lost is a Sunk Cost. I, nor the guy with the girlfriend, could get the time (resources) back that I lost.

Because of this, I realized that it would actually be in my best interest to leave the gym while I was ahead. Sure, I had wasted 10 of my minutes, but if I stayed, I would be wasting more of the time that I needed to do my homework. My time lost was a Sunk Cost and I could never get it back.

I weighed the cost/benefits of staying after waiting 10 minutes and going back to my room to do work. In the end, I chose to go back. This decision was honestly completely made because of that story Prof. Rizzo taught in class about Sunk Costs. 

In the past, I probably would have stayed to do the workout because I would've had the mindset that I would have wasted my time if I didn't do the forearm workout I had been waiting for. But from what I have learned in Econ, I now understand that none of that matters because the time in this instance is a Sunk Cost, and I cannot/couldn't ever get that back.