It’s My Life, It’s Now Or Never-Leveraging From Sunk Costs

Here’s how organisms have been doing it all this time

For context, he went to Alliance.

You need this detail before you hear what I’m about to tell you. Regardless, we’re still good friends.

We were in our first year of medical school. Most of our lunch breaks would have us closer to the lecture halls. The closest option was Chiromo.

If you’re a campus student in a public university, one meal is relatable to most students. Chapati and beans. Alias Chapo Ndondo.

Our Alliance alum was no different. The meal would level every person, regardless of the school they went to.

Back then, it was only 30 shillings. Ten for the beans and 20 for two pieces of chapati. It would be enough to keep you going until supper. On a sunny afternoon, it could knock you out if the lecturer has a droning monotone.

On this afternoon, our doctor-in-the-making student bought the usual. But he finished his chapati slices before his beans. Time was running out and we needed to be in class soon.

So what does he do?

He takes the saltshaker and pours it into his meal. Not shake, but pour. If his remnant meal was a lake, you would mine salt from it.

It’s my money, I can do whatever I want. Si I paid for it?

Like Bon Jovi, he was telling me:

It’s my life

He needed to make the most of his money. Nobody else, according to him, should enjoy his meal. Nobody did, besides him.

I doubt there are ever students who traverse the halls after everyone has left just so they can get leftover meals. Anyway, there’s a lesson here.

Sunk Costs.

Like Frankie said, “I did it my way”

You might have heard about it.

It’s how we stick to our initial decision because we already invested in it, despite the minimal or negative returns.

In our case, our Alliance alumnus decided to pour loads of salt into a meal nobody would even take. It was his money. He wanted to make the most of it, even though he never ate what was left on his plate.

Sunk costs can have that effect.

Here’s a recent example.

Sauti Sol were having what would likely be their last ever performance as a group. They told us they might come back, but we can never tell.

The rains, on the other hand, wanted us to have a muddy affair.

Let’s say you’re a Sauti Sol fan. But you’re not a fan of the rain. Worse still, you’re not a fan of dirtying your shoes. Mud is your second worst enemy. We’ll never know your first.

But you had already paid for the concert.

What do you do?

Do you attend the event despite your hatred for dirty shoes or do you attend despite your feelings? The logical option is to stay home, be happy, and have a clean pair ready for the following day. Or the next.

But even though we know this is a logical and preferable option, we would still want to have our money’s worth. We don’t need to have gone to Alliance to know that it would still pinch if we did not attend the concert.

I mean, Sauti Sol would never perform again — or so we thought— but you would have spent all that money for nothing? Your guts would opt to go to the concert. You might leave a trough outside under the gutter to collect some of the rain to wash your shoes when you come back.

That’s actually what I did.

I did it my way.

However, Organisms have not been doing this for the 3 billion-plus years they have existed.

You’re gonna hear my voice when I shout it out loud

Well, it wasn’t loud enough.

Maybe because the first organisms did not have a voice. Or a mouth. They were single-celled.

They never attended concerts. They never had salt-shakers. They didn’t go to Alliance.

But they were smarter than most of us despite never going to Alliance. I will probably get a lot of backlash from Alliance alumni, but hey, this touches everyone.

Evolution teaches us that organisms tinker. They work with what they’ve got and move forward. The example I can use is that of vertebrate limbs. That is, your legs and hands.

For a long time, we believed in two types of limbs.

The first is a single limb sticking out from the side of a body segment. Unbranched. From both sides. Think of the millipede, centipede, and insects with legs stemming from a single segment on both sides.

The scientific name for this type is uniramous. Uni- to mean one, and ramous to mean projection.

Others believed the complex limbs in other groups were branched. That is a single stem with two branches sticking out. Think of the peace sign — ✌That’s how they looked like.

What this means is one outpouching was divided into two — an anterior and posterior part. The scientific name for it is a biramous limb. Bi- to mean two, and ramus, again, to mean projection.

Biologists with encyclopedic-like knowledge of body forms believed these two styles were different and must have evolved independently.

Despite ongoing debates, there’s a school that believes this not to be the evolutionary case. Evidence comes from the field of evolutionary development AKA evo-devo.

Initially, there was a single tubed limb from a single segment. Later on, another segment formed, with another limb. But over time, the two tubes fused at the base to form a jointed limb.

Picture this. Next the the core of the body, the limbs fuse. Far from the body, they are still separate.

It’s the framework we have in our limbs.

A single big bone in our arms and thighs then two smaller ones, in the forearms and legs respectively.

This framework was inherited by all arthropods.

These organisms made headway with what they had. They continued to tinker with it until they made a better limb for their environment.

Despite having similar origins, the limbs became modified to suit various vertebrates in different habitats. We now have reptiles with and without limbs, birds with different forms of wings, and mammals that swim, walk, and fly.

They started shouting millions of years ago, and now we’re hearing them. Not through what they say, but what they do.

Just because they were obligated to inherit a forked limb did not mean they were limited to using it as it was in the past.

Organisms decided to shift the course. They made the most of what they had to benefit their ever-changing environment.

You also have the option of going to the concert or staying at home because your environment changes. You don’t need to stick with the original idea when it is not the most sound one you have.

You can shift course.

Why did organisms shift course?

Because if we are blind to sunk costs, our losses multiply.

The environment does not care that you have a forked limb or a single one. It will kill you if you don’t adjust. If you don’t adapt.

We like to mention how evolution is the great tinkerer.

I say it is the organism that tinkers and evolution gets the credit. The organism changes but the environment eliminates it.

From either side, tinkering happens.

Sunk costs are inevitable because you will inherit most of the form and genes from your parents.

The option lies with you — what will you do about it?

Option, not obligation — that’s what organisms have found out

Organisms have discovered that the structures they inherited, can either be burdens or opportunities.

Successful ones look at it from a point of options, not obligations.

Investments were made by long-gone ancestors. The results are presently living organisms.

Imagine you have a leg. Let’s call it a lower limb. And you stay in Rift Valley. Imagine now another version of you staying in Antarctica. Their limbs are likely to be fashioned by the environments where they reside.

The fashioning happens inside the organism. The investments made by the ancestors do not mean they are obligated to continue with the original form. Initial investments are not obligations. They are options.

This is the model Nat Eliason discovered which could counter the tendencies sunk costs have.

If you have paid for that concert, but it starts raining heavily or the grounds get muddy, you can opt to stay at home. Why?

Because either way, the money is spent.

How will you get value for your money? Sunk costs make us think the money should squeeze value from where it was spent. Not quite.

Evolutionary innovations are just that — evolutionary. More like, revolutionary. A significant change is one that never existed before.

When it shouts, its effects are generational. Arthropod body form and limb development is one example.

Option, not obligation.

Here’s my story of how I used this model obliviously — It was a concert I was planning to attend

Oktoberfest

Like a ritual, I made sure I attended Oktoberfest every year.

In Kenya, the festival is massive. Tusker, one of the oldest drinks in the country, sponsors the event. Similarly, the artists are local. It’s purely a local affair. Occasionally, a guest artist may be invited. This year, it was Diamond Platinumz.

As one of the largest events of the year, it runs for three days. Friday through to Sunday. Since 2019, I have never missed it.

Until this year.

Before getting tickets, I pondered.

How much time will I spend there?

Likely the whole night. It has always been the whole night. It’s the ritual.

How much will I spend?

More than the ticket price. Food, drinks and transport.

Who will be in attendance?

Legendary artists. Nyashinski, Khaligraph Jones, and Mejja, to mention a few. I have attended most of their concerts this year. It added some weight to my next decision.

The biggest lever was value. Yes, every minute some of my favourite artists hit the stage was pure value for my money.

Now, how long will they be performing?

Barely an hour.

The following day, after the concert, I was bound to go to work. I was recently moved to a new department, an intense one. Fatigue would affect my better judgment.

These questions had a single conclusion. Adent to my budget and my energy levels.

On the flip side, I imagined the artists.

1. They will not be there the whole night.
2. They will perform for at most, an hour.
3. They will get paid.

Massively.

Everyone who attended the event will be chipping something into their pockets.

I like local music. I’d promote it. My friends and club members know how much I’ve mastered the lyrics of so many local hits.

But these artists had something that I didn’t have — leverage.

I’d spend so much money, time, and energy and get value for a short time. Peak moments of stellar performance, and spread-out time waiting for the next peak moment by the next artist.

The artists, on the other hand, have an idea of the schedule. They can time themselves — what time to arrive, the songs to play, and when to leave. They are informed. Secondly, they get maximum value for their time.

• One, they get immediate feedback — love from fans for their hits.
• Two — money from their fans. True fans, as Kevin Kelly calls them.
• Three — they get to leave once they are done.

In the shortest time, they get what nobody else outside the stage will get.

I wanted that. They will continue to earn long after they have left. They even started to earn before they walked in.

How could I get to that level?

I continued working on my project.

I didn’t attend the concert.

I was not obligated to follow the rules I imposed on myself all those years. In the same way, organisms were not obligated to stick to the genetic rules they have been following from their ancestors.

This year, I broke my rules.

Genes have to break rules for new effects.

They would have decided to stick to their initial role. But occasionally, they don’t.

Option, not obligation.

Luck ain’t even lucky, got to make your own breaks

Bon Jovi said it.

I have to echo it. For myself and those reading this article.

You have to make your own breaks. It’s how you create your own luck.

It starts by breaking your own rules. Rules make it difficult to question them. But once you do, you start creating leverage.

Effects of sunk costs don’t have to plague your decisions.

Break that rule.

If you’re wondering what it was I was working on, you can find it here.

It’s the product of breaking rules.

PS: This piece is an extension of my primary work. I’m currently building The One Alternative Academy, an alternative way of learning insightful, actionable points from sought-after experts in under a week. Find it here.