Learn how to be accountable without demonizing yourself.

instead of asking:

how can i be more like them?

ask:

how can i be more like me?

how many versions of me do i occupy? where do they live? how do they grow? what will they bloom into? what rituals do they practice? how do they show care to others? what are they afraid of? what do they dream about at night?

Something John Green points out in The Anthropocene Reviewed that I now can’t stop noticing everywhere is how apocalyptic language is so often used as an incentive in even the most inconsequential circumstances: Get it before they’re gone, last chance, the countdown is ON. Media, be it social or TV or news, profits from keeping us in a state of anxiety. In other words, it behooves a lot of companies across a number of industries for us to always be worried that the worst is yet to come.

The moral of the study, then, is not that we should make all decisions on the whim of a tossed coin. It is that breaking through your hesitancy and doubt will leave you happier than you might imagine. “A good rule of thumb in decision making is, whenever you cannot decide what you should do, choose the action that represents a change, rather than continuing the status quo,” concluded Levitt.