by Idrees Musa

Idrees Musa is a student in his sophomore year at Emory University. He plans to concentrate in business while also pursuing studies in Arabic. Idrees is an avid member of his university’s Food Chain, Muslim Students Association, and the Pakistani Students Association.

“Do what’s right.”

It’s a pretty cliché statement. We’ve heard it so many times that it’s kinda lost its meaning. We all have different ideas of what’s right or wrong, but no matter what you believe in,

I believe that you should always do what you believe is right. It may be simple, but it isn’t easy, at least not for me.

As a Muslim, I have to pray five times a day. There is one prayer I have to complete approximately between 8 and 9 p.m. The other day I’m in my university’s student center, I check the time, it’s 8:45, and I have to pray by 9. There’s no time for me to go back to my dorm so that means I have to pray in the student center, which means that other people are going to see me prostrate with my forehead on the ground.

That thought makes me very uncomfortable to the point that I consider missing the prayer altogether, but then I ask myself the fundamental question: What do I believe is the right thing to do? I know what the right thing to do is; I just have to do it. So, I find an open space and pray there. Even though I initially felt awkward knowing that people were watching me, afterwards I got a sense of confidence and serene fulfillment that I honestly hadn’t felt in a while. Although I attribute some of this fulfillment to be a result of my spiritual state, the bulk of it came from me simply doing what I believe is right.

Doing what you believe is right applies to small tasks just as much as it applies to big ones. We all have goals and hold fundamental values, but we may often lose sight of them in our day-to-day lives. And if you don’t, I know that I do.

I have the typical goals of wanting to do well in school so that I can attain a great career, and I strive to eventually lead a life where I enjoy both my work and leisure time. This is a fairly big goal, but one that is certainly attainable; unfortunately, I sometimes act as though it doesn’t exist. When I’m lying in bed on a Tuesday night and scrolling through Instagram knowing full well I have a paper due the next day, am I really following what I believe in? Do I even believe in my goals?

If I ask myself this question explicitly, I’ll say, “Of course I do.” But my actions certainly don’t reflect this belief. In order to act on what I believe, I have to continually ask myself the question, what do I believe is the right thing to do? Not once a year, or once a week, but every time I face a meaningful decision, big or small. This definitely isn’t an easy thing to do, and sometimes I may end up mentally straining myself. But if we can all strive to ask ourselves this question more often, there is no doubt we will bring ourselves closer to realizing our goals and maintaining our essential values