"I'm doing it because I choose it. And if it's not working, I can make a change"
About this Quote
Agency is the quiet bassline under Alanis Morissette's whole public arc: the refusal to be cast as a mood, a moment, or a marketing angle. "I'm doing it because I choose it" is less motivational poster than boundary-setting, the kind that arrives after you've watched your life get interpreted by strangers. Coming from a musician who broke through young, got canonized fast, and then had to live inside the expectations that canon creates, the line reads like a corrective to the pop-industrial script: you're either a victim of the machine or a puppet of your own ambition. She insists on a third option - authorship.
The second sentence is where the steel shows. "And if it's not working, I can make a change" reframes quitting as competence. Not failure, not flakiness, not betrayal of "the brand" - just feedback. There's an implied rejection of the sunk-cost mentality that governs careers, relationships, even creative identities: if you've publicly committed, you're supposed to stay committed, especially as a woman, especially after being labeled "angry" or "confessional". Morissette flips that expectation. The subtext is anti-fatalism: feelings aren't a prison; choices are editable.
It's also a subtle piece of self-protection. By naming choice and change as defaults, she builds a psychological exit door into every room. For an artist whose work has often turned vulnerability into spectacle, that's not just empowerment rhetoric. It's a survival strategy disguised as a simple sentence.
The second sentence is where the steel shows. "And if it's not working, I can make a change" reframes quitting as competence. Not failure, not flakiness, not betrayal of "the brand" - just feedback. There's an implied rejection of the sunk-cost mentality that governs careers, relationships, even creative identities: if you've publicly committed, you're supposed to stay committed, especially as a woman, especially after being labeled "angry" or "confessional". Morissette flips that expectation. The subtext is anti-fatalism: feelings aren't a prison; choices are editable.
It's also a subtle piece of self-protection. By naming choice and change as defaults, she builds a psychological exit door into every room. For an artist whose work has often turned vulnerability into spectacle, that's not just empowerment rhetoric. It's a survival strategy disguised as a simple sentence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Embrace Change |
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