Struck by an unfortunate event in the extended family, I spent much of my time this weekend ruminating on life and what I want out of it.

As I delved into my past and my learnings from my mistakes, as well as my aspirations for the future, I realized that a lot of times we get our priorities wrong. Not that it is intentional or ill natured.

Think for one instance about what most of us want to do in terms of work. We want to have a good work life, feeling happy and satisfied about what we are doing in terms of work or our contribution. But then many among us remain disillusioned or unsatisfied from their work but continue to do the exact same thing for long years. Not because we couldn’t get an opportunity to try out things that may give us higher satisfaction but because trying something new is riskier than what we do in their day jobs.

Or take for instance how we value family much above other things in general. Most of us live to provide for it. But often we get so embroiled in work and other things that life has to offer, that we forget our families or do not take out enough time for them.

Relationships is another classic one. We love to be in one and it’s often a great start. Slowly however, we start taking it for granted and neglect each other unknowingly. Result: we feel the pain in different ways and remain unhappy.

Consider health. We swear by it and make every possible resolution. But then we go on without exercising for days altogether. We neglect healthy food and binge whatever we crave for. Ending up with some lifestyle disease that we could have avoided. And then spend our life trying to control our urges.

How do we go about making decisions that affect our life and then remain noncommittal to them? Why does it happen to us?

I think we do it not out of compulsion but sub-consciously choose paths or do things that don’t match with what we want out of life. And that’s how these divergences occur. By the time we realize it and can take action, it’s often late or we are bound in a corner.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the key to being happy then is to be conscious of our decisions and re-evaluate what we are doing to keep our end of the bargain. If the goal is important to us, we should be able to plan around it. At any point in time.

If we keep on assessing whether we really still want to head in the direction we wanted to move in, it will help keep our head straight. For if the answer is no at any point of time, it’s better to change things then, rather than holding onto a false pretense.

The theory of sunk costs doesn’t always work and can sometimes be a fallacy…