Some sacrifices deserve the name investment; others are simply losses with flattering language.

Calling something an investment is easy and does not make it one. An investment buys something specific that you can name and expect. A loss dressed in that language is a cost with no return attached, kept in place because admitting it was pure cost is painful. The vocabulary does not change the arithmetic.

Take something you have been sacrificing for and ask plainly what it is buying and by when. If you cannot answer, that is not a condemnation, but it is a conversation worth having with yourself.