Very few people make decisions on pure principal. Even if they know something is right, or wrong, they say things like "well, I pick and choose my battles" or "I've got to do the sensible thing."
Well.
There's something to that, sure. But I rarely hear people say, "I'm scared and just back down from doing what I really feel I should do because of fear."
I never hear that, ever, but surely some people are stepping back out of fear. They comfort themselves by saying that they're reasonable people who pick and choose.
Maybe that's true. It's worth double-checking yourself when you start saying stuff like that though - could it possibly, maybe, just be fear?