Don’t Be Afraid to Walk Away
Your life is a complicated web of relationships. Business relationships. Personal relationships. Sometimes both.
We invest in those relationships, with time, love or money. Sometimes all three.
But what happens when those relationships go sour? Particularly long term relationships. You look at all your effort. All the time you may have wasted. All the money. Or all the love. Maybe all three. You look at all you’ve given and you think, “what am I supposed to do now?”
There’s a concept called “the sunken cost fallacy”. It is an illogical belief that you should continue investing in a relationship because you’ve already put so much into it.
For instance, a man finds out his wife of 20 years is cheating on him. They have two kids, a mortgage and a timeshare. He has already invested so much of his life. His whole world. Does he forgive her? Does he just ignore it?
A female junior executive spends 6 days a week at work. Long hours, well into the night. Busting her ass. Sacrificing friends, family and lovers. All for her goal of getting that promotion; getting into the brass ring. And then one day, after nailing a huge account, her boss announces that his nephew is the new chief of promotions. Her hard work meant nothing. Her lost relationships meant nothing. What does she do? Does she quit and start from scratch? She’s in her forties now. Who would want her?
This is the sunken cost fallacy. The belief that you should continue hurting yourself by staying in a bad relationship simply because you’re already too invested.
This is a belief based on irrational fear. And predators thrive on it. It’s a terrible thing, but people will use you if they can. They aren’t all cackling supervillains. Sometimes they’re just flawed, broken people.
Most people are selfish and short-sighted. Did the wife from the first example intend to destory her husband and their family? Probably not. She just selfishly did what she wanted and didn’t think of the consequences. The executive who promoted his nephew just wanted to give him a bright future. He didn’t even consider the woman who was keeping his business thriving. “Janice is a great employee. I wish we had more loyal employees like her.”
“She’ll never leave this job.”
“He would never divorce me.”
There’s a real problem with people confusing kindness for weakness. It isn’t unfounded. Sometimes giving people give too much and get taken advantage of. Oftentimes people don’t even realize they’re taking advantage of you. They’re so used to you always being there for them that they don’t even notice anymore. They stop appreciating it because it would be like appreciating the sky for being blue.
You can’t let kindness be your identity.
Yes, you should be kind. You should be dependable. You should be loyal. But you should also remind people that it takes strength to be those things.
And sometimes the only way to do that is to leave people who don’t value you.
Here’s another concept, usually associated with business. “Don’t be afraid to walk away from a bad deal.”
Let’s say you’re trying to get funding for your business startup. You’re in negotiations with a financier. From a casual standpoint he has all the power in the relationship. He has money. You need it. You both know it. There is only one thing that prevents him from taking everything he wants and giving you almost nothing.
“No.”
You have the power to say no.
You have to know your worth. If you are being mistreated. If you are not being valued. You can’t be afraid to walk away from a bad deal.
It isn’t easy.
But when you ask yourself “what would I do?”, the answer is “anything you want”. The world is not small. You are not small. You can do something else. You can find people who care about you.
That isn’t to say you should take major decisions lightly. Don’t blow up your life before considering the consequences and being sure you’re in the right.
But always know your worth. And don’t be afraid to walk away when the time comes.
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