Saturday, January 30, 2016

Sunk Cost, or No Love is Wasted

Economists use the term 'sunk cost' to describe expenditures which cannot be recovered. Generally, economists tell us, sunk costs should have no bearing on our decisions, because they are already paid out, unrecoverable. Whatever achieves our goals most efficiently, regardless of sunk cost, this we should do.

An example. You are waiting in the only lane at the supermarket, and have been waiting for ten minutes. The man still in front of you has a shopping cart full to the brim. Suddenly, a cashier opens register 2.

You, the shopper, must now make a decision. Will you continue to wait in this lane, the lane in which you have already invested ten minutes of your life, or will you hop over to this newly opened checkout lane and leave more quickly?

Strict economics says- SWITCH LANES IMMEDIATELY. Your ten-minute investment is 'sunk cost', unrecoverable. If your end goal is escaping the supermarket with your bananas, you can achieve your goal more cheaply by disregarding prior investment. So, move. Few would question that logic.

Consider gambling. No matter how many coins you drop into that slot machine, your odds of striking it rich are ever and always the same. No matter how much you have 'invested' into that big win, your 'investment' should have no bearing on your decision to drop in another nickel, because that 'investment' has no bearing on your likelihood of success. It's sunk cost.

But that's not so easy. How hard is it to walk away with $200 in the hole? $500? Suddenly 'sunk cost' feels much more pressing. Reason would say 'walk', but we can't- at least not as easily as in BiLo.

Let's get more personal. A friend is moving out of town. They are one of your closest friends, someone you have increasingly grown to love and admire. You have spent hours watching Seinfeld reruns together, fought through despair and heartbreak together, wrestled with major life decisions together. And now they are leaving town.

You know that friendship will be much harder once they've gone away. You know it will likely fade. And the better friends you are, the more upsetting that is to you. The closer you grow to each other, the harder their leaving will be. You don't want them to go, and they are going. What can you do?

Economics has an answer. Economics tells you, 'Change lanes now. Switch friends. The longer you hold this off, the harder it will be. The return on your investment in this friend is quickly coming to an end. You will be better off elsewhere."

Reason, in it's immutable calculations, would no doubt determine that your safest bet is to withdraw and re-align. Find a new friend, a more stable one, and invest your love there. This is your best chance of getting a return on your time, not the friend that is leaving.

But this is harder than gambling, isn't it? Any time with this friend that is leaving, economically, is sunk cost. They are leaving, and you will inevitably suffer loss. There is an allegiance that is hard to break in friendship, a loyalty written in your bones that you fear to cross. It would feel shameful, somehow, to leave them before they leave you. But if we're honest, we do it. We act on economics, we act on fear of loss. We cut our losses, and change lanes, more often than we'd care to admit.

Nowhere is this tension more tangible than in walking towards death with someone we love. Here is the final extreme of this logic, the crucible of our relational economics. We may find some benefits to maintaining a friendship even as they move. We can call, write, visit, after all. But what benefit can we gain by walking with someone as they near death? What benefit can we find in deepening our love for someone who will not survive the month?

You see, the cost of deepening love is absolutely sunk cost. The expense of the emotion, time, cost required to maintain and even deepen a relationship with one who will shortly die- this expense will certainly be followed by grief and hearbreak and sorrow. And the more we love, the greater the sorrow.  Loving one who is dying is an expense that at best will leave us with years of mourning.

What reason do our hearts have to love when loss is sure? What justification do we give for our drive to rage against the dying of the light, if it is truly dying? Why do we value such deep loyalty? Why call courage and beauty that love which is such poor economic sense?

Perhaps because there is a higher value for love and even mourning than economics alone can account for.

Several of my friends have now lost children, or face the fear of losing them. And reason would tell them 'Don't get too attached. Don't make the mistake of loving that which might break your heart. Don't be left with wasted time, wasted hope, wasted love.'

Damn that kind of reason. Damn that use of economics. There is no such thing as wasted love, even love unto death. The God who is Love- the God who extends His love to the world, the God who teaches us love by setting His love into our very hearts- this God collects even our tears, for he finds them precious. There is no wasted love. There is no meaningless heartbreak. All human love and all human heartbreak is but the echo of His heartbeat in a broken world, the echo of the breaking of God's heart for His people.

For the Christian, love is never a sunk cost. Ever.

If all of life is about the glory of God- if all of life is about knowing and worshipping Him- if all of life is about restoring (with Him) the world we have broken, extending love into the darkest of places- then every decision to love, regardless of outcome, has purpose. It has meaning. Every love and every mourning has inestimable value, for it is the heart of God revealed, that all creatures may worship Him for His love for eternity.

You see, Love is not a simple noun that will fade, nor a verb that will end, but a Person who is eternal. Therefore no Love is wasted, ever. Love is never a sunk cost.

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