Artificial constraints

#283

I borrowed twenty-something books from the library three months ago. Some I finished. Most I didn't. And for weeks, I carried around this low-level guilt about the ones still sitting on my nightstand: half-read, abandoned, judging me quietly.

When I voiced this shame out loud one day, my partner asked me: "Why do you have all these artificial constraints!?"

I'd been complaining about always showering before breakfast. That's the rule I'd set for myself, apparently. Why? Because that's how I was raised and I'm rather obedient, so I didn't question it. But then one day I didn't have time. So I ate breakfast first. Waited an hour. Then took a shower.

The world didn't end.

That day, I went and returned those unfinished books to the library. I became aware of the fact that I was forcing myself to finish books I no longer wanted to read urgently or that other activities took priority during that phase of my life. It helped me let go of my own made-up rules that no longer served me.

When obligation becomes the point

The borrowed books weren't the problem. The pressure I'd put on myself to finish them was.

I had borrowed the books with real excitement. New frameworks, new stories, new ideas - I'd wanted them all. But then life got dense. Some books didn't land the way I expected. Others I started and realized I'd outgrown them. A few were just... not it.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that I should finish them. Because finishing things is what you're supposed to do. One of the ways I'd measured success in life. But also: psychology.

There's a concept known as the "sunk-cost fallacy". It's the idea that because you've already invested time, money, or effort (i.e. sunk cost) into something, you should keep investing more to justify what you've already spent. It's a cognitive bias, a trick our brains play on us. We think that the effort we've already wasted somehow obligates us to waste more.

But in reality: that obligation is completely made up.

Turning completion worship into intentionality

My partner noticed a pattern quickly enough when I used to yes to things I didn't have to say yes to, and feel trapped. I created rules and forgot they were optional. I pressured myself to finish because stopping felt like failure and I couldn't tolerate leaving things unfinished.

Sunk costs don't obligate you. Returning the books didn't erase what I'd already read. Breaking the shower rule didn't undo my morning. The sunk costs were sunk either way. Finishing them wouldn't un-sink them.

What finishing them would do is tie me to decisions I no longer believed in.

I gradually learnt that meaning comes from who you are now, not from finishing what made sense five years ago. You don't have to be who you were when you started, because you've grown. You've evolved.

What artificial constraint are you carrying today? What would happen if you broke it?