<p>Your acceptance is yours. No one is telling you how to apply it. You can use it to flag the post you find most useful or helpful, or to flag using any other criterion. If you want to be guided by the community and follow the voting, that is your choice too. </p>

<p>Here's another thing that's important. Sometimes an answer looks better at first than it does after comments pointing out its limitations or even errors. Or sometimes a really good answer arrives late. It's fine for you to change your mind. There won't be flak. It's your privilege. </p>

<p>Remember also that upvotes and positive comments remain other ways of acknowledging good answers even if you don't accept them. </p>

<p>Reputation is a funny thing any way. Even people with moderate or high reputation are often puzzled by patterns of voting: what they think are good answers sometimes are not accepted, or much upvoted, and the opposite happens. So, accepting a question is your way of saying thanks, and thanks for the thanks, but on the whole people here don't take reputation more seriously than it deserves. </p>
