The Sunk Costs of the Dream of Running a Marathon

Jogging for a photo-op by Army.mil A recent commenter’s anecdote on Get Rich Slowly made me realize something: sunk costs can be metaphorical as well as physical. Running is NOT for everyone. I see this type of story over and over. People get this idea of a “marathon” and then they start training and they quickly get an injury. There was even a reality show about people doing just this on PBS where a few of them got injuries as well - and they continued to believe in the dream of a marathon and continued training while sustaining further injuries. How this related to sunk costs metaphorically is that you can have a sunk cost related to a dream also. When you’ve invested a lot psychologically in a dream it’s difficult to give it up.  You’ve already come so far haven’t you?  Maybe you were on the wrong path to begin with though. Maybe a better dream would be to be a power walker - it’s very low impact and proba...