People Don’t Want To Start Over
People don't want to start over because they confuse the path with the destination.
You spent five years learning the wrong skill. Three years in the wrong relationship. A decade building the wrong business. The sunk cost whispers: don't waste what you've invested.
But the cost is already sunk. You're not getting it back. The question isn't what you've spent. It's what you'll spend next.
Starting over feels like losing.
Like admitting defeat.
Like all those years were wasted.
So we double down. We throw good years after bad. We optimize the wrong game because we're afraid to reset the board.
The ego hates starting over. It's attached to the story. I'm the person who did this thing. I'm the expert in that domain. Changing course means killing that identity. And we'd rather be consistently wrong than inconsistently searching.
But here's the thing. Starting over is a skill. The more you do it, the faster you get. Your second business takes two years, not ten. Your next skill compounds on the last. You're not starting from zero. You're starting from experience.
The people who win big often started over multiple times. They changed cities, careers, relationships, beliefs. They weren't attached to the path.
They were attached to the truth.
Nature starts over constantly. Seasons reset. Cells regenerate. Evolution pivots.
The river doesn't mourn the water that's gone downstream.
We romanticize persistence. Grit. Staying the course. But there's a difference between persistence and stubbornness. Between patience and delusion. Sometimes the courageous move is to walk away.
You're not your past choices. You're your next choice.
The question isn't whether you can afford to start over. It's whether you can afford not to. Every day you stay is a day you chose this. Tomorrow you'll be one day older. The only question is whether you'll be one day closer to what you actually want.
Starting over feels expensive until you calculate the cost of continuing. Then it starts to look like a bargain.
The monastery burns. The monk walks away.
He's not less for it.
He's lighter.