Cuprins
Sometimes we understand that it is time to move on, but we are afraid to change something and find ourselves in a dead end. Where does the fear of change come from?
“Every time I find myself in a dead end and I understand that nothing will change, possible reasons immediately pop up in my head why I should not leave him. It pisses my girlfriends off because all I can say is how unhappy I am, but at the same time I don’t have the courage to leave. I have been married for 8 years, in the last 3 years marriage has become a complete torment. What’s the matter?»
This conversation interested me. I wondered why it is difficult for people to leave, even when they are completely unhappy. I ended up writing a book on the subject. The reason is not only that in our culture it is considered important to endure, to continue to fight and not give up. Humans are biologically programmed not to leave early.
The point is in the attitudes left in the inheritance from the ancestors. It was much easier to survive as part of a tribe, so the ancient people, fearing irreparable mistakes, did not dare to live independently. Unconscious thought mechanisms continue to operate and influence the decisions we make. They lead to a dead end. How to get out of it? The first step is to figure out what processes paralyze the ability to act.
We are afraid of losing «investments»
The scientific name for this phenomenon is the sunk cost fallacy. The mind is afraid of losing time, effort, money that we have already spent. Such a position seems balanced, reasonable and responsible — shouldn’t a grown man take his investments seriously?
Actually it is not. Everything that you spent is already gone, and you will not return the «investment» back. This mindset error is holding you back — «I’ve already wasted ten years of my life on this marriage, if I leave now, all that time will be wasted!» — and keeps you from thinking about what we can achieve in a year, two or five, if we still decide to leave.
We deceive ourselves by seeing trends for improvement where none exist.
Two features of the brain can be «thanked» for this — the tendency to view «almost winning» as a real win and exposure to intermittent reinforcement. These properties are the result of evolution.
“Almost Winning,” studies show, contributes to the development of addiction to casinos and gambling. If 3 identical symbols out of 4 fell on the slot machine, this does not increase the likelihood that next time all 4 will be the same, but the brain is sure that a little more and the jackpot will be ours. The brain reacts to «almost win» in the same way as to a real win.
In addition to this, the brain is receptive to what is called intermittent reinforcement. In one experiment, American psychologist Burres Skinner placed three hungry rats in cages with levers. In the first cage, each press of the lever gave the rat food. As soon as the rat realized this, she went about other things and forgot about the lever until she got hungry.
If actions give results only sometimes, this awakens special perseverance and gives unjustified optimism.
In the second cage, pressing the lever did nothing, and when the rat learned this, it immediately forgot about the lever. But in the third cage, the rat, by pressing the lever, sometimes received food, and sometimes not. This is called intermittent reinforcement. As a result, the animal literally went crazy, pressing the lever.
Intermittent reinforcement has the same effect on the human brain. If actions give results only sometimes, this awakens a special persistence and gives unjustified optimism. It is highly likely that the brain will take an individual case, exaggerate its significance, and convince us that it is part of a general trend.
For example, a spouse once acted as you asked, and immediately doubts disappear and the brain literally screams: “Everything will be fine! He got better.» Then the partner takes up the old, and we again think that there will be no happy family, then for no reason at all he suddenly becomes loving and caring, and we again think: “Yes! Everything will work out! Love conquers all!”
We are more afraid of losing the old than we want to get the new.
We are all so arranged. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economics for proving that people make risky decisions based primarily on the desire to avoid losses. You may consider yourself a desperate daredevil, but the scientific evidence suggests otherwise.
Assessing the possible benefits, we are ready for almost anything to avoid guaranteed losses. The “don’t lose what you have” mindset prevails because deep down we are all very conservative. And even when we are deeply unhappy, there is certainly something that we really do not want to lose, especially if we do not imagine what awaits us in the future.
And what is the result? Thinking about what we can lose, it is as if we put shackles on our feet with 50-kilogram weights. Sometimes we ourselves become an obstacle that needs to be overcome in order to change something in life.