Integration #1 - Williams 1 Moreau First Year Experience Bryan Reaume 15 October 2021 Why I Get Out of Bed Every Morning I struggled with starting the integration assignment because of how difficult it has been for me to identify my root beliefs. When I was still a high school student, I refused to share my personal beliefs and experiences with others. I felt like I could ruin either current or future relationships by leaning too heavily into beliefs that might be disagreeable to others. The fear of losing out on those relationships forced me to adopt a fake persona. I would change my personality around people so that I never risked coming across as different from them. The idea of pleasing everyone in my life made me a robot in some ways. I started to lose that internal sense of happiness that comes with understanding your core beliefs. Waking up this morning just to sluggishly walk to my Chemical Principles exam finally motivated me to start the integration. Even though I am a tired college student who could easily stop the alarm button and continue sleeping, I make the decision every time to get out of bed and go live the life that I have worked so hard to achieve. Realizing the significance of that decision and how it connects back to my life is what enlightened me to my root beliefs. As I start to appreciate the person that is Derick Williams, I believe that growth is a continuous journey, that I can live loudly by being who I am, and that I have the power to help others discover themselves. I believe that growth is a continuous process that is never meant to end. It has taken me twenty years of life to even catch a small glimpse of the person that I am and understand the person that I am becoming. Since we are never meant to be perfect in our current state, we Williams 2 should appreciate the chance we have to continually grow. Too many in society today feel like we must illustrate a model of perfection. The idea that we must be perfect also encourages people to believe that they have reached the end of their growth. When faced with such a dilemma, “what keeps us from connection is feeling like we are unworthy of that connection” (Brown - Moreau FYE Week #1). Since we are never done growing, people who seek perfection will constantly feel like they are unworthy of connecting with others who may be at different levels of growth. Perfection is an untenable state of being that prevents us from enjoying the journey ahead of us. Developing as a person and being open to experiences that will teach us important life lessons is the way that we lean into who we are as humans. Moving forward, I will appreciate my future growth by not allowing myself to fall prey to society’s images of perfection. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie puts it best when she shares “how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of stories” (Adichie - Moreau FYE Week #7). The more and more we fill our lives with fake images of success, the further and further we allow stories of perfection to dictate our lives. I believe that my life will be much richer and more rewarding by continually growing. More than just growing as a person, I believe that I can live loudly by being who I am. Like I mentioned before, I was scared to admit my personal beliefs and experiences because they made me different from my peers. I have gone almost my entire life neglecting to share what I enjoy about life so that I could more easily fit into what other people enjoyed. When diving into the toxic signs of friendship, I lived in constant fear of what others might say about me. It took me leaving my hometown to finally realize that “if you can’t trust someone to speak kindly of you when you’re not around, it’s usually best to leave this friendship behind entirely” (Taylor - Moreau FYE Week #4). Discovering a new world of people at college that are wanting to explore their ideas and passions has encouraged me to do the same. I feel comfortable in a setting like Williams 3 Notre Dame to finally share my love for vintage photography and talk with other people about electric cars and renewable energy. Back in my small part of Indiana, no one understood why I would be excited about such things. Here at college, my peers have given me constant encouragement to be who I am and lean into these hobbies. Moving forward, I want to make sure that I don’t allow my surface-level accomplishments to overtake my personal hobbies. People seem to forget that “our lives are not our resumes” (Grove - Moreau FYE Week #5). It’s okay to be proud of your academic and leadership achievements. At the same time, I know that I can connect to other people on a much deeper level when I express the personal pride I have in my unique talents and hobbies. After accepting the importance of growth and living loudly through my personal hobbies, I believe that I have the power to help others discover themselves. In some ways, I see helping others as my personal mission in life. After struggling for so long to find myself, I have such a powerful message to share with others. As someone who relies heavily on the teachings of my parents and grandparents, it can be extremely impactful to learn about life from those who have been through similar experiences. When describing the poem about her own life, George Ella Lyon put it best when she said that “it’s life beyond my notebook is a testimony to the power of poetry, of roots, and of teachers” (Lyon - Moreau FYE Week #6). The most effective way that we can discover more about ourselves is by helping others to discover themselves. The journey of self-discovering and self-understanding is one that can be walked together. So many people have struggled with the same issues that I have over the past several years. By sharing my roots and experiences, I can provide hope and encouragement to the people who think it is impossible to be themselves. A big issue we face as people is that “we live in a constant battle between external success and internal value” (Brooks - Moreau FYE Week #2). We constantly find new titles and Williams 4 shiny awards to fill a need for external success. The constant pursuit for success causes us to forget how much value is held internally through our roots, passions, and beliefs. Through my own hardships and the valuable lessons learned from those experiences, I can provide a guiding hand to those struggling to find their own meaning in life. My root beliefs are what give me hope and belonging in life. The more I understand the value of being myself, the more I will appreciate the things that make me . No one can be just like you and that gives us power as individuals. Everytime I decide to get up in the morning and go about my day, I remember what it is that has driven me to make that decision. I believe that I am not done growing, so I face the day looking for new opportunities. I believe that I can live loudly, so I lean into the hobbies that fill my life with joy and comfort. I believe that I have a mission to help others, so I share my personal struggles to provide a guiding light of encouragement. After coming to college and appreciating the person I am growing into, I am genuinely excited to see what the future holds for me. Whether it's a meaningful career or simply a job that takes care of my basic needs, I hope to achieve a sense of personal satisfaction knowing that I have walked into my future as who I truly am. Fr. Pete McCormick explains it beautifully when he says that “regardless of our misfires, we are called to a life of courage” (McCormick - Moreau FYE Week #3). No matter how much I have failed in the past to be myself, I leave that bed every morning with the chance to lead a life made beautiful by who I am. I look forward to living that life out in action. Williams 5 Works Cited Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “The Danger of the Single Story.” TED Conferences, July 2009, https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story #t-1119772. Accessed 30 September 2021. Moreau FYE Week Seven. Brooks, David. “Should you live for your résumé ... or your eulogy?” YouTube, TEDx Talks, 14 April 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlLWTeApqIM&t=301s. Moreau FYE Week Two. Brown, Brene. “The Power of Vulnerability” YouTube, TEDx Talks, 6 October 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0. Moreau FYE Week One. Grove, Fr. Kevin. “Two Notre Dames: Your Holy Cross Education.” University of Notre Dame, https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=859bc1a8-0d0f-4e b4-a1c1-d0a45c429187. Accessed 16 September, 2021. Moreau FYE Week Five. Lyon, George Ella. “Where I’m From, a poem.” George Ella Lyon: Writer & Teacher, http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html. Accessed 23 September, 2021. Moreau FYE Week Six. McCormick, Fr. Pete. “The Role of Faith in Our Story” YouTube Videos, University of Notre Dame Campus Ministry, 8 February 2021, https://youtu.be/lcZMeqWWOIs. Moreau FYE Week Three. Taylor, Olivia. “5 Signs You’re in a Toxic Friendship.” Grotto, https://grottonetwork.com /navigate-life/relationships/signs-of-toxic-friendships/. Accessed 8 September, 2021. Moreau FYE Week Four. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#t-1119772 https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#t-1119772 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlLWTeApqIM&t=301s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0 https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=859bc1a8-0d0f-4eb4-a1c1-d0a45c429187 https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=859bc1a8-0d0f-4eb4-a1c1-d0a45c429187 http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html https://youtu.be/lcZMeqWWOIs https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/relationships/signs-of-toxic-friendships/ https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/relationships/signs-of-toxic-friendships/