You're listening to LifeKit from NPR.

Hey everybody, Mary El Cigara here.

Have you ever found yourself toiling away at work,

feeling completely burnt out and thinking,

you know, what if I just quit?

Could I do that?

Or maybe your work situation isn't dire,

like it's fine, but you're ready for something new.

You wanna try another kind of job

or start your own business.

Or maybe you wanna leave a marriage

or move from your cold, dreary home state

to a tropical climate

that also happens to be more expensive.

So often these callings feel impractical and out of reach

and you might feel like,

how could I leave something I've invested so much into?

This is called the sunk cost effect.

It's actually like behavioral economics

and it's actually pretty dangerous

because just because you've sunk some time, energy

and money into something

...