I dropped my brand new iPhone off my bike handlebars in London. Cracked screen, broken LED, almost unusable—less than a week old. And the first thing I noticed wasn't the damage. It was my reaction to it: I wasn't that upset.

A year ago, this would've ruined my night. Now it's just a line item.

Someone I used to know had a name for this. Whenever she'd do something dumb that cost her money, she'd call it her "stupidity tax." She'd actually budgeted for it—a dollar amount set aside for the inevitable moments where life punishes you for being human. I'm not that advanced yet. But the psychological frame is what matters.

budget for your own stupidity

We all operate under the assumption that we'll make good decisions. But you won't—not always. You'll lock your keys in the car, miss a flight by ten minutes, mount your phone poorly on a rental bike. The question isn't whether you'll do something dumb. It's whether you've psychologically budgeted for it.

When you haven't, every mistake feels like a crisis. Your survival instinct kicks in—not because the stakes are high, but because there's no margin in your mental model for error. The phone breaks, and your brain treats it like a threat to your livelihood.

When you budget for stupidity, mistakes become friction instead of failures. Expected friction. A cost you knew was coming, even if you didn't know the form.

the compounding cost of self-punishment

Here's where it gets more interesting. The cracked phone costs a few hundred bucks. Annoying, not catastrophic. But the self-punishment that follows? That can cost you a whole day. A whole trip. A whole mood.

The instinct to self-flagellate is strong—especially when the mistake was preventable. Your fault. Your responsibility. Obviously the wrong call. The inner voice gets loud. And it feels righteous, like you're holding yourself accountable.

But you're not. You're just compounding the loss.

Self-punishment masquerades as accountability. Real accountability is fixing the problem and adjusting the system. Self-punishment is just stewing—replaying the mistake on loop while your actual life keeps moving without you.

the real math

The cost of losing your day, your happiness, your momentum—that's almost always higher than whatever you already lost. And what's already lost is usually not recoverable.

So you're left with a simple calculation: pay the tax, or pay the tax and lose the rest of your evening to self-inflicted misery. One is a line item. The other is a write-off.

This applies beyond money. A friendship you handled badly. A conversation you botched. An opportunity you missed because you hesitated. The mistake is done. The only variable left is how long you let it keep costing you.

Budget for your own stupidity. When the bill comes, pay it and move on.