It’s tempting to think that all we need is more time to…think. We just need a few more hours to ponder, a few more days to ruminate, just a bit more time to figure out what the right thing to do is.

Usually, that’s just an excuse.

The truth is, we usually know what we’re supposed to do—but there’s something holding us back. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s stress. Maybe it’s the knowledge that doing the right thing is harder, that it’ll cost us friends or face or money. It’s not that we don’t know what we should do; we just don’t want to do it, for one reason or another.

So ask yourself, constantly: Am I avoiding something because it is a really complex situation that requires this much thought? Or am I just avoiding it because it’s uncomfortable? Is it a hard problem that I need to think about, or am I using the thinking about it to avoid doing something about it?

Odds are, you’re avoiding something. The answer is probably simple. As Marcus Aurelius put it, “If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it.”

That’s it.

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