Over the past year, I have sat down for almost every issue of the Coat of Arms to bust out yet another opinion piece. As I looked back over all my articles I struggled to find the right word to describe the common theme that seems to surround all my pieces. I jump started the year with an article regarding the unnecessary stress of grades. Next, I leaped to discuss the repercussions of using derogatory terms, followed by another article advising people to listen more closely to song lyrics. I then moved on to a piece explaining the deep importance of community service. Lastly, I wrote about finding happiness amidst the stress of school and in particular the stress of junior year. All of these pieces focused on honesty, love and respect. It took a little bit of thinking and some group processing, but I finally came up with the central theme: moral responsibility, both towards yourself and towards others. Now let me try to explain my column and this idea of moral responsibility. Here are the definitions of these two words:

Moral: Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.

Responsibility: The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something.

Now I could of course nitpick a few words in both of these definitions; but they’re both from dictionary.com, so I’ll cut them some slack. The general idea of each definition is there. To have good morals is to have a good understanding of what is right and what is wrong. To be responsible is to follow through with one’s duties and obligations. Now, if you put those two words together to form “moral responsibility,” then that means not only knowing what is right and what is wrong, but also following through and taking action. It’s one thing for someone to know something is bad but it’s quite another for someone to actually do something about it. The doing part is the real challenge.

So this, in a nutshell, will be my column. I will focus my articles on how we as human beings can follow through with having good morals. Some people may see my views as naïve or idealistic, but those are not really the right words in my opinion. Instead, I would say that my views are optimistic in that I haven’t given up on humanity. I believe we, as people, are innately good. The challenge for me, for you, for almost everyone, is acting on this goodness.