The Origins of That Famous Carnegie Hall Joke

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” is a six-word story, and one of the most famous examples of flash fiction. Versions of the story date back to the early 1900s, and it was being reproduced and expanded upon within a few years of its initial publication.

The story is popularly misattributed to Ernest Hemingway; this is implausible, as versions of the story first appeared in 1906, when Hemingway was 7 years old, and it was first attributed to him in 1991, 30 years after his death.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy: How It Affects Your Life Decisions

The sunk cost fallacy is a cognitive bias that makes you feel as if you should continue pouring money, time, or effort into a situation since you’ve already “sunk” so much into it already. This perceived sunk cost makes it difficult to walk away from the situation since you don’t want to see your resources wasted.