When Matahachi laments the five years he wasted, Musashi's reframe is blunt: "If you killed five years, so what? All it means is you're starting out five years later." The move dissolves sunk-cost paralysis. Time already lost is gone and unrecoverable; treating it as a reason not to start now only adds the *next* years to the loss. The lost five years are not a verdict on your future — they're just a later starting line on the same road, which is still open. Matahachi does the opposite: he ruminates on the loss, feels weighed down by shame, and misses the rare opportunity in front of him (a mentor, a fresh start in Edo). The regret is not introspection; it is avoidance wearing introspection's clothes. Practical rule: when you notice yourself grieving wasted time, convert it into a start date. The only question that moves you is "what do I do from here?" — never "how much did I already lose?" Cross-domain: career pivots, education at any age, recovery, sunk-cost reasoning in investing and projects. --- *Source: [[Book Inventory/Progression|Progression]] (Sebastian Marshall, 2016) — Upstream Effects #6 — Avoidance*