In the United States, the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) has defined the terms LIFO (Last In, First Out) and FIFO (First In, First Out) as appropriate for inventory accounting. For those in the know, the former can deliver significant advantages to a corporation by minimizing taxable income. These are among the scores of acronyms and terms comprising the secret jargon of the informed members of the guild – good for those who figure out and benefit from the rule. Even so, most of us are content to remain among the unwashed mass, deposited upon the craggy shores of blissful ignorance. We pay more than others. We suboptimize our opportunity. If we do consider the advantage of accounting creativity, we might decide the extra effort to be not worth it.

Still, we feel compelled to drive as fast as possible between stoplights, knowing the next will allow those we just vanquished to regain their ground lost. We push and shove our way to the boarding gate at an airport, only to wait for our group to be called. We jump up as quickly as the train pulls into the station, fight out a stake in the aisle and grab our luggage from overhead. It doesn’t occur to us that we are not decamping our car until those dozens of others between us and the exit move.

How do we come to measure our desire to gain advantage? Is the investment showing a return? We catch wind of an approach that seems cheaper, faster, better – and undertake to deploy it often with too little consideration of its real value and associated costs. Maybe we just don’t like the idea that someone else is going to get something that we’re not. We don’t want to be first in and last out.