This Wednesday, I attended the “How to make a tough call” Rose Café session which focused on Cicero’s book of moral duties. All of the topics were interesting and gave me a moment for thought, including when to reject a leadership position, and when to not tell the truth.

I resonated the most with the general question of how to make a tough call; as students, we are often forced to make potentially life-altering decisions on a daily including choosing out major, choosing a college that has a limited selection of majors, choosing a junior summer internship that could lead to a full-time offer, and so on. While these events do not mean much in the scope of the rest of your life, they could surely have a great impact on the type of career you end up in, and I believe that we often feel overly pressured to make “correct decisions”. While we all understand the potential consequences of choosing one decision over the other, we may be overthinking these decisions on a daily. Some people cry over not getting an internship, but this doesn’t mean that your prestigious career is over. There is always room to crawl back in, and this is something that we often forget as busy students. Relating to how busy we are, I believe that if taking a leadership position will add to the possibility of my success as a student, I should take it; on the other hand, if any time constraints and other commitments will get in the way of performing to the best of my ability for this commitment, then I should not take it as other people may be more fit for the position.

Cicero’s book introduced many interesting examples of how to view the world, and how to make tough calls especially when relating to issues of morality. Acting with morality will be an essential component of my life that I should stick to, as well as understanding how it is important to take a step back and relax; your life is not bad as you think it is.