What I Need To Do

John Scalzi, in a great post on AmazonFail, reminds everyone that we're mostly responsible for ourselves.

This also brings up a point which I think it worth airing, which is that I and at least a couple of authors I know got e-mails about AmazonFail — not the ‘did you hear about this?’ e-mails, which are fine, but the ‘you need to speak out about this now’ ones, which are pretty much not. First, of course, I don’t need to do anything about anything, other than what I decide I need to do. Random people e-mailing me about what I need to do have a grave misunderstanding about their powers of persuasion regarding me. Second, even when I’m inclined to do something, at this point, what I’m inclined to do first is make sure I have an understanding of what’s actually going on, and to use my own judgment regarding whether I need to know more before making a substantive comment.

My emphasis.

Of course, no one's really pressing *me* to do anything at all, but I still appreciate the sentiment and think it's well said.