Integration 3 Lopez 1 Professor Chan 4 March 2022 Moreau First Year Experience Section 33 Not Death, but Life “To us, death is exotic,” said Joanna Ebenstein, founder of Morbid Anatomy, a Brooklyn-based enterprise that offers events and books focused on death, art and culture. “But that’s a luxury particular to our time and place” ( “Meet the nun who wants you to remember that you will die" by Ruth Graham, NY Times – Moreau FYE Week 3). In this present age, the abundance of technology and medicine that we have around us makes it very easy to think that it is natural for a person to live a very long time until the cause of death is beyond the means we have to prevent it. However, many people before us in history did not get to have such long lives. Of course, there are many unfortunate events that bring about death even sooner, such as violence and car crashes, but these often come as a surprise because of the conditions of the present age that I mentioned. The truth is that humans do not have a long time to live. Everything we do with it must count. Whether we are doing something or simply enjoying life as we should, we can live more purposefully if we understand that we, too, will pass away one day. So, what to do with this precious time? We can seek to acquire wealth, or fame, or power, but if we never stop to think about a better purpose, do those things really matter in the end? To figure this out, we need to take the https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/us/memento-mori-nun.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/us/memento-mori-nun.html Lopez 2 time to really question what we want to do with our lives in the long run, but also at our current stage in life. ”To me, the point of sitting still is that it helps you see through the very idea of pushing forward; indeed, it strips you of yourself, as of a coat of armor, by leading you into a place where you’re defined by something larger” ("Why we need to slow down our lives" by Pico Iyer, TED – Moreau FYE Week 1). In modern times, we are so completely surrounded by noise everywhere we go, that whenever we are without it, we often feel empty. When Nicole was a child, she loved to go to the library. She would come out with a stack of books after hearing the satisfying beep of the book scanner, and would return in just a couple of weeks to devour more books. As she grew older, there came a certain point where she felt an emptiness from watching and reading fiction, feeling that she did not want to watch other people live their lives anymore – she wanted to live her own adventure. “The only way to know more about yourself is to test the waters – just get out and experience life!” (Navigating Your Career Journey - Moreau FYE Week 4). She realized that once she learned something about herself, the moment she embraced it was the moment that began to flourish. One such thing was her love of classical music. There were very few people at her school that she knew also loved classical music, so she felt out of place and tried to listen to the music that other people listened to. Once she embraced that she loved classical music, she felt so much happier listening to it and allowing it to become a part of her identity. This is reflective of a time when she was seven, when she started playing the piano. She quit for a year since she did not want to practice as a child, but came back a year later after realizing that she loved to play. From that point, she grew and grew in her love of music and competed in piano competitions every year. In college, Nicole wondered what direction she should take with her life. She wanted to be an engineer, but wondered if God would ever call her to religious life. From learning about https://ideas.ted.com/why-we-need-a-secular-sabbath/ https://undergradcareers.nd.edu/navigating-your-career-journey---moreau/ https://undergradcareers.nd.edu/navigating-your-career-journey---moreau/ Lopez 3 the saints as a child, she had the idea that religious life was the best path to sainthood. “You give up a life of wealth, marriage, and most of all, your freedom of choice” ("Hesburgh" by Jerry Barca and Christine O'Malley – Moreau FYE Week 2). This is truly a beautiful form of giving oneself to God, but there are other forms as well. Nicole found herself accepting an engineering job for research in her second semester of freshman year, which made her so excited she declared mechanical engineering as her major the next day. She felt that if God gave her such a strong desire to become an engineer, she should become one. And she did. A good friend that Nicole met in her first year at Notre Dame, Ali Mauritson once said that what we do with our lives centers around the way in which we serve God (Discernment Activity – Moreau FYE Week 5). Nicole sought to serve God in her daily life, offering up her work for the conversion of sinners and other intentions. She created technology to help people, always with love and careful attention to the needs of the world. She was not a fierce character, but a tender and joyful one. “Tenderness is the path of choice for the strongest, most courageous men and women. Tenderness is not weakness; it is fortitude.” (“Why the only future worth building includes everyone'' by His Holiness Pope Francis, TED Conferences – Moreau FYE Week 7). In this way, she was able to live her daily life by being kind to others and serving God by serving them. It was not for her to understand why God gave her so many blessings in life; she could only thank him and use it to the fullest. She had many struggles as well, but she put her trust in God, allowing him to take care of her. “Why” questions trap us in our past; “what” questions help us create a better future” (“The Right Way to be Introspective (Yes, There’s a Wrong Way)” by Tasha Eurich, TED Conferences – Moreau FYE Week 6). Nicole asked what she should do to serve the world, and she found it in engineering and her beautiful family of five children. While https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=10159379-7eca-4549-8581-ab9500c9ecd9 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yZ7hqvx-u4EuW2nlK-fRbWFiurQm1mZv_KpoeeiN4So/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yZ7hqvx-u4EuW2nlK-fRbWFiurQm1mZv_KpoeeiN4So/edit?usp=sharing https://www.ted.com/talks/his_holiness_pope_francis_why_the_only_future_worth_building_includes_everyone/transcript https://www.ted.com/talks/his_holiness_pope_francis_why_the_only_future_worth_building_includes_everyone/transcript https://ideas.ted.com/the-right-way-to-be-introspective-yes-theres-a-wrong-way/ Lopez 4 we mourn her loss, we must take this as a reminder to celebrate her life and the life we are all given a chance to live.