All We (Can) Do
April 4, 2020 | By Jadan Anderson, MC ‘22. Jadan is majoring in Economics.
In remembering, if I find that I have done anything in love, I cannot in good faith count it as a sunk cost. It is gain.
April 4, 2020. By Jadan Anderson, MC ‘22. Jadan is majoring in Economics.
(1) A sunk cost is unrecoverable.
(2) The number one mistake in rational decision making is basing decisions on what has already been lost.
The agent should move on, quickly now. Without looking back, continue forward. Dwelling on sunk costs is only beneficial insofar as the agent can reflect on that experience of loss in order to prevent, as far as possible, a recurrence. I was taught (and I do agree) that this system of moving on is efficient in a world where losses are inevitable. In some ways, I also think this system squares quite nicely with the biblical motif of forsaking what is behind and pressing on in stories of transplantation, of conversion, of evangelism.[1] More than avoiding being turned into a pillar of salt, moving on can be an act of faith.
I am not proud to admit that the news of COVID-19 spreading did not really occupy my thoughts until it locked my dormitory door. Far from feeling mostly grief or even fear at the pandemic rapidly taking lives and life as we knew it, I was irritated at how much of the time I spent this academic year had been rendered unrecoverable.
We were all in the middle of something before safety mandates effectively put a sort-of stop to it. Before being confined to our (makeshift) homes and government-issued twelve-foot-wide bubbles of space, we were planning concerts and vacations and summer plans. We were sacrificing sleep to marginally more polished essays and extracurricular loves. We were building relationships. The world beyond Yale was doing the same: planning, building, sacrificing. And though some of these doings have merely changed in the medium through which they are being done, we have all experienced sunk costs of time, sleep, mental and emotional energy.
But, of course, that loss was a risk inherent before the coronavirus outbreak and will continue to be long after humans have developed resistance and the economy has recovered. I had forgotten that anything and everything anyone does can at any point become a sunk cost. All of the choices we make are choices under uncertainty--no outcome is guaranteed--and the shocks of this viral outbreak have not really disrupted reality but rather are forcing us to reckon with it.[2]
The illusion of certainty has emerged as a prominent theme in all of the literature surrounding the crisis, which calls for a re-evaluation—or recollection—of everything, from the vulnerability of our impoverished, to the weaknesses in our healthcare system, to the consequences of our tendencies toward discrimination.[3] It is also a common undercurrent in the slew of at once convicting and edifying articles speaking directly to coronavirus in relation to our Christianity, which encourage us to get creative with the ways we worship, implore us to invest in the communities in which we find ourselves, and remind us that lament is holier than fear. Generally, we have come to recognize our false sense of permanency. Now, we feel an urgency to count the illusion as sunk and simply move on.
But the faithful thing to do in this time may not be to move on to whatever new “normal” lies ahead. Well, at least I don’t think we should move on so quickly. The mere fact of uncertainty is not the lesson we are meant to learn. The proverbs taught us that lesson a long time ago.[4]
The real lesson through this uncertainty is—I think—actually one about trust, particularly where we place it. From the beginning, the only sure thing has been Him alone. Deuteronomy 31 reads, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread...for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you”[5]; Isaiah 54, “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed”[6]; Romans 8, “For I am sure that neither death nor life...nor anything else all in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.”[7] I think some of the anxiety and sense of injustice (the latter, at least on my part) at relocation, some of the temptation to hoard groceries and amass rolls of toilet paper, is symptomatic of the knowingly or unknowingly misplaced trust in the buildings, places, routines, living conditions, communities, and loved ones in and alongside which we’ve been blessed to consistently live. This trust, this dependency, is meant for God. If we move on too quickly, I am afraid we will forego the mercy (yes, mercy) we are being shown in this time. That is, the chance to learn and relearn how to rightly place our sense of security in God. After all, He is ubiquitous and unchanging in place and time. Chaotic home lives and suffocating solitude are not excluded. Though I’m not sure what that looks like in our individual walks, surely remembering and re-evaluating come first.
And if I can offer another, perhaps encompassing idea: the other key lesson through this uncertainty is one of value. What we put our trust in can be a tell of what we value. We make choices based on what we trust to be true. We also make choices based on what we value, and we decide to do what is most likely to get us what we want or as much of what we want as we can get. While I have realized the extent to which I put my trust in the permanence of life as I knew it at Yale, I’ve also had to reckon with the value I place, as we all do, on my output: written papers, conducted concerts, attended meetings, given advice, achieved grades.[8]
Here’s the thing. It is written that when we have given ourselves over to Him, we become slaves to righteousness.[9] Our new command is to do all in love.[10] As Christians, then, in terms of what we do, I think we should be experiencing far fewer sunk costs. To do something in love means that we are no longer moving toward what we value, toward whatever end or output or destination we desire. To do something in love means that in the moving, in the doing, we have already succeeded. I will remember the costs in time, sleep, tears, energy; I’ll also remember the basic tenet of our faith, that in God what seems a loss is not so. In remembering, if I find that I have done anything in love, I cannot in good faith count it as a sunk cost. It is gain. He is giving us a chance to relearn that. When this passes, we should and will move on. I pray that we do so wholly. But I don’t want to move so quickly as to miss how He is moving now.
[1] “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 3:13-14, ESV
[2] DeLorenzo, Dear Students: There is No Afterwards
[3] Coronavirus & Quarantine: What Big Questions Can We Be Asking?
[4] “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” - Proverbs 27:1, ESV
[5] Deuteronomy 31:6
[6] Isaiah 54:10
[7] Romans 8:38-39
[8] Hopkinson, It’s Time We Talk About Productivity
[9] “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart...and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” - Romans 6:17-18, ESV
[10] “Let all that you do be done in love.” - 1 Corinthians 16:14, ESV