Reluctance.

Reluctance was his ethos. He reluctantly teetered on the edge for a good while and reluctantly went over the edge, against his will. In hesitation he retained a fragile image of self and hence found comfort. He reluctantly finished school, found an office job, a wife, and sired two children. He went in and out of debt, accumulated savings, paid off his home, raised the children, sent them to school, retired, and went reluctantly with his wife on an Alaskan cruise for his sixty-fifth birthday. It was there when he reluctantly succumbed to death - unsure he wanted to go on living, unsure of what laid ahead. He reluctantly struggled against his murderer - but alas, his half-measured resistance proved futile. That was roughly the life of Plato Allen, nearly sixty-five years of reluctance.