In high school, I had an amazing Latin teacher. He made Latin very relatable, which is a difficult thing to do, as Latin is a dead language. Nobody speaks Latin except to point their nose upwards in the air and recite some lines, it’s no longer a verbal language. And one of those reasons is because it has non-standard grammatical structure. Without going too much into it, Latin sentences can be worded in dozens of ways while retaining the same meaning.

This made studying Latin like a puzzle. I was intrigued with the subject. We went over myths, culture, history, and the language. A key element of Latin, especially in the intro course, was to teach etymology, something particularly useful for law or medicine. We’d learn the roots, the prefixes, suffixes, and more. A key lesson my teacher went over was the word “Decision.”

Decision is a combination of two words: de = ‘OFF’ + caedere = ‘CUT’

We know words like detour, defer, or defame. We know words like incision or precision. Decision means to cut something off, to pick one, but not the other. My teacher made it a strong point to include that if there isn’t something being cut off, something removed, it’s not a decision. It’s only a decision if there’s an opportunity cost.

He capped off the etymology lesson with a great legend of Gaius Mucius Scaevola. One of the bravest Roman soldiers to ever live, he literally single handedly stopped the Etruscan invasion of Rome. Sent to assassinate the Etruscan king, he killed the Etruscan messenger and was captured. When brought before the Etruscan King, he proclaimed that he and 300 other soldiers were sent to kill him.

He demonstrated his courage to his captors by thrusting his right hand into a blazing altar fire and holding it there until it was consumed. Deeply impressed and fearing another attempt on his life, Porsena ordered Mucius to be freed; he made peace with the Romans and withdrew his forces.

He held his hand in a blazing fire, staring the king in his eyes. The Etruscans knew not to mess with Romans. His decision and his follow through allowed one solider to save a kingdom. To save his kingdom, he gave up his hand. Decisions are powerful because of what we choose and what we give up.