There is one court whose “findings” are incontrovertible, and whose sessions are held in the chambers of our own breast.

You can win every argument outside and still lose the one that happens in your own chest at two in the morning. Other people can be persuaded, or kept at a distance, or out-talked; the private verdict is not open to appeal, because it has all the evidence. Most people know perfectly well what they have done, whatever they have managed to get others to believe.

Before defending a decision to anyone else, say to yourself in plain words what you actually did and why. If that sentence is uncomfortable, the problem is not the audience, and no amount of arguing outward will settle it.