Personal pronouns take ownership. So whether we should use them or not depends on how much responsibility we want for whatever we’re talking about.

If I’d been better schooled back then in the art of accompaniment, I would have

understood how important it is to honor another person’s ability to make choices. I hope I would have understood, as good accompanists do, that everybody is in their own spot, on their own pilgrimage, and your job is to meet them where they are, help them chart their own course. I wish I had followed some advice that is rapidly becoming an adage: Let others voluntarily evolve.

Choosing Responsibilities: This means making deep commitments to freely chosen responsibilities. These responsibilities might be visible and public, or they might be personal and private.

You and I don’t need to try to be exactly like any of the people in this study. The relevant question, as it pertains to this chapter, is not whom do we want to emulate, but what responsibilities do we feel compelled to choose? All of us, no matter what we do in life, and no matter how the roulette wheel spins, can choose responsibilities beyond ourselves. It doesn’t matter how many people you touch with the responsibilities you choose; it might be many, or it might be only one or a few. What matters is the very act of honoring a self-chosen responsibility.

The lesson was an important one: the things you choose not to do often matter as much as the things you choose to do. The real test of a person is the degree to which they are willing to nonconform to do the right thing.