Let’s pretend you made 12 dozen cookies yesterday. You went to the store, you bought all the ingredients, you came home, unpacked, got your kitchen ready, combined all the ingredients, baked the cookies, spent most of your day in and out of the oven and at the end of the day you had 144 cookies.
Excited to sit down and enjoy the fruits of your labor you finally bite into one. And almost vomit.
Something’s not right. It tastes awful. You grab another cookie and take a bite. Same awful taste. You look at the remaining 142 cookies and wonder what went wrong.
In the above baking scenario many things could have gone wrong You may have confused 2 teaspoons with 2 tablespoons. Or may have used baking soda instead of baking powder. The point is a variety of things may have gone wrong. End result: you are faced with throwing away 142 uneaten cookies. But more importantly you’re throwing away all the time, money and effort you put into those cookies.
Now move out of your kitchen and into my office. You come to see me to discuss your dissatisfaction with your job, or a boyfriend, or a friendship. You tell me all the negatives; the list is long. Being fair you also state all the positives; the list is short.
We discuss the idea of quitting, breaking up, or getting new friends. You respond by saying you’ve put too much time, money and effort into this situation. For that reason, and for that reason alone, walking away seems devastating. Not because you foresee a positive change occurring but because it’s hard to swallow the “wasting” of all that time, money and effort.
Now back to your kitchen. You belly up to the table and you nauseatingly choke down the remaining 142 cookies mumbling to yourself, “I have to eat these cookies, I put too much effort in to them just to let them go to waste.” Nausea and misery ensue.
Or instead, you could simply pitch the cookies, cut your losses, learn from your experience and take a refreshed approach to your next endeavor.
You only get one shot at life, don’t waste it choking down inedible cookies.