Yes. Sorry I started making this post and then got sidetracked without elaborating. Positive or negative EV is basically the idea that you want to do things that improve your odds of success but that you recognize that there is randomness involved that determines if you actually succeed. You're trying to do things that are expected to be valuable even if they aren't known to be. In poker terms, if you have 90% odds to win a hand, it's +EV to bet strongly on it even though you still might get hit with that 10% chance and lose after all.

I brought it up because you said you are freaking out because you have many options and you don't know which option is correct and that you find the reward or lack thereof for 'right' behaviour inconsistent. Viewing 'socially correct' in EV terms might be useful because even when you do things 'correct' you might run up against something that no one could predict in either a positive or negative way - some piece of family history might cause someone to react badly to an anodyne joke, or similarly, a minor gesture of kindness might make someone's whole day because they were having a shitty one. In practice, it means do your best but don't beat yourself up too much if some interaction doesn't go your way - 'correct' after the fact is because of luck as much as anything.