"The Everest climbers, Kayes suspected, had been lured into destruction by their passion for goals. His hypothesis was that the more they fixated on the endpoint - a successful summiting of the mountain - the more that goal became not just an external target but a part of their own identities, of their senses of themselves as accomplished guides or high-achieving amateurs. If his hunch about the climbers was right, it would have become progressively more difficult for them to sacrifice their goal, despite accumulating evidence that it was becoming a suicidal one. Indeed, that accumulating evidence, Kayes was convinced, would have hardened the climbers' determination not to turn back. The climb would have become a struggle not merely to reach the summit, but to preserve their sense of identity. In theology, the term theodicy refers to the effort to maintain belief in a benevolent god, despite the prevalence of evil in the world; the phrase is occasionally used to describe the effort to maintain any belief in the face of contradictory evidence. Borrowing that language, Chris Kayes terms the syndrome he had identified goalodicy." - Oliver Burkeman in "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking"