Microsoft Word - Integration 1 week 8.docx Giving to Receive Root Belief 1: I believe that I find fulfillment by giving. During my time at Notre Dame, I have found myself giving many things. As soon as I got here, I decided that I would have to be brave and reach out to make new friends, and I figured the best way to reach out to new people was by giving because everyone loves to receive things. I mentioned to all the people on my floor that I had plenty of snacks in my room and that the door was always open, so they were more than welcome to stop by to chat and grab a few twizzlers. By the end of that week, the twizzlers were long gone, but I also met some of the people who have become my best friends, and I was the happiest I had been in a long time. Soon after, we watched Father Pete’s video on the role of faith, and this particularly jumped out to me because at one point in the video he said “The greatest journey you will ever go on is one of self- discovery. On this journey success, productivity, and failure are an afterthought. What truly matters is authentically responding to the best of your ability as the person you know yourself to be, the person that God has created you to be, but a word of caution, this journey requires a framework.” (“The Role of Faith in Our Story” Fr. Pete McCormick, C.S.C. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcZMeqWWOIs Moreau FYE Week 3), which inspired me to build a framework centered around giving to my community through service because of my belief that giving brings me fulfillment. As time went on, I found other ways to give beyond just snacks and small things. My favorite of these new things to give were jokes and laughter. I’ve always valued humor, so when we were asked to take the character strengths survey for Moreau, I wasn’t too surprised to see humor was my number one strength (VIA Character strengths survey https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register?registerPageType=popup Moreau FYE Week 2). Seeing the results of this survey only further strengthened my belief that giving is how I find fulfillment because my three top strengths, humor, love, and teamwork, all involved giving in some way shape or form. Overall, my time at Notre Dame so far has taught me that I really do find a lot of joy in comfort in giving both physically and spiritually, and I think that this is a lesson that I will carry with me through the rest of my time here and the rest of my life. Root Belief 2: I believe that I form my strongest, best relationships through humor and sharing. As I mentioned previously, during my time at Notre Dame I have found that making others laugh brings me fulfillment, but I also have found that it has resulted in some of my best and strongest relationships here. I think a big part of this is that humor allows us to be vulnerable in a more comfortable way by joking about our vulnerabilities rather than presenting them full on in ordinary conversation, and as Brené Brown discussed in her video, the key to forming relationships with others is being vulnerable (“The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0 Moreau FYE Week 1). Additionally, I’ve found that even ordinary humor can help to open conversations with new people. Many of my good friends that I’ve met in my classes came from conversations that started with me cracking a joke during class to break some sort of tension because everyone was too uncomfortable to say anything. Furthermore, humor really helps me pick out what relationships are good relationships. I’ve noticed both at home and Notre Dame that good friends will laugh at even the worst of jokes and do their best to be humorous with you too. In Olivia T. Taylor’s grotto article, she mentions that 2 of the things that toxic friends tend to do are talk with you only about negative things and not pay full attention to you when you are speaking, and both of these things are especially prevalent with humor (“5 Signs You’re in a Toxic Friendship” by Olivia T. Taylor, Grotto https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/relationships/signs-of-toxic-friendships/ Moreau FYE Week 4). I’ve seen that toxic friends tend to not pay attention to the jokes and sometimes won’t even notice that something was supposed to be a joke, and they tend to bring up something negative about these jokes rather than laughing and joining in. Beyond just humor, I’ve also found that sharing with prospective friends can really strengthen the bonds you form. For example, the upperclassmen who on my floor who I often shared my snacks with early on, returned and continue to return the favor by introducing me to their friends, teaching me valuable tips and tricks for life on campus, and giving me some of the essential supplies like command strips, paper plates, and other things that I forgot. Even more than physically sharing, however, I’ve found that sharing stories with one another also helps to form strong bonds. Much like George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From” poems enlighten us about her life, stories from friends help me to understand what their lives are like and allow me to be a better friend (“Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html Moreau FYE Week 6). Additionally, much like the stories of Father Sorin’s early days at Notre Dame and his desire to build a Catholic school to enlighten the masses shaped the character of Notre Dame as well as its physical shape, the stories of a friend’s adventures often shape their character and beliefs as well as their physical shape with things such as scars having roots in stories (Fr. Sorin Letter to Bl. Basil Moreau, December 5, 1842 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/23665/modules/items/107233 Moreau FYE Week 5). For example, a good friend was telling me about his recently passed cousin and pointed out a scar he had on his leg from when they used to go and play in the woods together as kids, and he explained that being in the woods helped foster his love of nature and was why he had three plants on the windowsill in his room. Lastly, I’ve learned firsthand that sharing stories can also help build stronger friendships by fostering an environment of understanding and cutting down implicit biases. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says in her video “The Danger of a Single Story,” “When we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise” (“The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/u p-next#t-1107548 Moreau FYE Week 7). This was especially applicable to me when I first met a good friend of mine who is from Guam. At the time I knew near nothing about the country or its inhabitants, so I pictured it as a smaller less tourist friendly version of Hawaii. Eventually, he started telling me some stories about living in Guam, and I was surprised to hear how much it was like living in the U.S. despite being an island so far away from here. Hearing his stories let me stop believing the single story of the nation that I had developed from what little I knew, and I formed a strong friendship with him because by sharing stories, we found out we had a lot in common. During my first half- semester at Notre Dame, I have found that my best group of friends have arose from the times that we as a group were able to laugh and make jokes together as well as share both physically and spiritually. I think this has taught me valuable lessons about how to approach forming friendships with people in new environments, and I believe that these lessons will continue to help me form strong, healthy relationships in the near and far future.