“The secret of getting ‘ahead’ is getting started.”

And it might be worth adding: Use your own “head,” instead of someone else’s. This may appear to be self-evident, but isn’t. Too often, allegiances are used as a surrogate for thinking, with the inevitable result of surrendering one’s responsibility and freedom. This is true of any sort of allegiance: interpersonal, religious, political or communal.

The inherent delusion of giving over one’s responsibility into the hands of another is that ‘other’ will work in our behalf (and not their own). Rarely, if ever, does this delusion work to our advantage. Instead when reality sets in, we discover the flaw of our presumption. 

MT summed this up religiously: “I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious—unless he purposely shuts the eyes of his mind and keeps them shut by force.”

And politically: “All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.” Or: “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

Abdicating responsibility contains a copout. “Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catchphrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let man label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country—hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

A rule of all life (physical or otherwise) is that for every action there is a corresponding reaction, of the same kind.