Adjectives to distinguish deliberate action from inaction

Question

I'm looking for two adjectives to describe outcomes or actions that follow from a decision. The decision is usually a choice between doing nothing, or choosing to act. Please suggest words for:

• < A >: Adjective that describes the "boring, status quo, do not act, let things run their course" choice.
• < B >: Adjective that describes the "actually we need to do something here" choice.

Here are a couple examples:

We're going to have a talk about dealing with those rude neighbours who keep parking in our space. The < B > case will require me to confront them face to face, while the < A > case allows me to avoid conflict, which is appealing to me since I'll be moving out soon anyway.

and

I have decided to quit my job, leave town, and move to Prince Edward Island! I've thought about it, and the < A > action would have me just growing old, sharpening pencils in my current routine. Although my < B > resolution is scary (I'll have to leave my friends and home), there's a unique opportunity for adventure and discovery that I want to pursue.

I've thought about words like

• "Default" (What is a word that means "the outcome resulting from a lack of action"?), which doesn't really have a meaningful opposite ("user selected"), and
• the phrases "Null Hypothesis" and "Alternative Hypothesis", which sound kind of like what I'm looking for. But I think phrases like "null case" and "alternative outcome" are liable to confuse or mislead the audience.

Answer 1

In the medical field, you'll find the term watch-and-wait, which describes a deliberate choice to do nothing until the situation develops further. This approach is used, for example, in indolent cancers that aren't yet causing problems or symptoms for the patient. The problem is known and understood, but the risks associated with taking action are high enough that at least for now, it's better to do nothing. There is an implication that the problem will be consistently monitored, though, so there is not a sense of "finality" in this course of action - you may still decide to take action in the future (it's not a commitment to taking no action). The opposite of this is called an intervention, which is some deliberate action taken to change the course a disease. Both of these terms could be used more generally to describe the choice between taking action and doing nothing.

Answer 2

I would suggest Passive and Aggressive.