Maechen Wang Moreau FYE 3/3/2022 A Life Well-Lived While we focus on moving through life in modern society—how to earn money, how to gain intelligence, how to become a more respectable person—we often forget to stop and reflect on ourselves. Considering how short our lives may turn out to be, it becomes even more important for us to understand ourselves. “The ability to gather information, which used to be so crucial, is now far less important than the ability to sift through it.” (“Why We Need to Slow Down Our Lives” by Pico Iyer – Moreau FYE Week One) Maechen Wang, or Mae as she likes to be known, has realized this in her life, and I can say that she has done her best to live a life well-lived. Deeper connections have always been important to Mae, and this stems from her education at Notre Dame. Learning to mingle different viewpoints was always something that Mae valued and studying at the university taught her to appreciate different kinds of people. Coming from an international background, where most people were of one race, one religion, and one political party, it was hard for her at first to understand differences in people but talking to the increasingly diverse student body on campus made her change her views. She then “always wanted to bring in different views, whether that was a Republican president or a democratic president,” (“Hesburgh” by Jerry Barca and Christine O’Malley – Moreau FYE Week Two) and this allowed her to see behind exterior appearances to understand people as they truly were. Mae never shied away from difficult questions, either, and found that self-reflection was an incredibly important part of self-growth. She found meaning in intrapersonal development, and could always be found asking others reflective or pensive questions: “Where am I headed, where do I want to end up?” (“Meet the nun who wants you to remember that you will die” by Ruth Graham – Moreau FYE Week Three) Late night conversations with friends and family, whether it be on serious topics such as personal identity or casual subjects such as music and movies, were always some of her favorite parts of the day. Focusing on understanding herself and validating her feelings was something that made her different from others. While Mae was goal driven and had her own ambitions in life, she also believed that life was not all about material wealth or fame. Instead, she found meaning in the people around her, and she strongly believed that the way people shaped you was much more important than what you could ever achieve on your own. Mae valued her feelings, her experiences, and the ones of the people around her. If she were here, she would have agreed that “every experience shapes you in some way, whether you realize it at the time or not.” (“Navigating your Career Journey” by the Meruelo Family Center for Career Development – Moreau FYE Week Four) This made her valued by the people around her. Her friends found solace in confiding in her when times were rough, and she always had a stable shoulder to cry on available (Moreau FYE Week Five). Mae found that being happy and enjoying life in the moment was what she most valued, and this all stemmed from her ability to put others first while valuing her own emotions. While Mae was https://ideas.ted.com/why-we-need-a-secular-sabbath/ https://ideas.ted.com/why-we-need-a-secular-sabbath/ https://okta.nd.edu/app/universityofnotredame_panopto_1/exk13lykiqNLbwS7H357/sso/saml?SAMLRequest=jZJNb%2BIwEIb%2FSuR74mDSRmsBElu0KhJto0J72AsyzhQsEo%2FrcVr49%2BtAPy%2FVnjwezfh9nxmPSLWNk9Mu7Ow9PHdAIZnPxmytL%2FPiYrhRqYBSp0UZo1%2BQQ5oXQpdFOVS5zlnyCJ4M2jETWbzNiTqYWwrKhpjKhUhzkYrLlRhIIWReZIX4y5JZFDFWhVPjLgRHknPcB5XZOoO648o53lnz0j8ejvhkMXioVQtrpyy6gOsBh8N%2BMGyOe%2FN8u9i8Lsvr4UXJiZD3QCz5g17DiWrMnlRD0LurFFF89SNTeQyosfltbG3sdsw6byUqMiRtVCMZtFxObxYy0snNuYjk9WpVpdXdcsWSKRH4nuMKLXUt%2BCX4F6Ph4X7xSfbhPtshBaizN4hMY8urcxzPLRDvDfMFbo3NFLkDSw5tY0medvSzO%2FeGwiajvlqeVuG%2F9P%2Fcrt5B2OR%2FbI%2F4F5GzopO3sXY%2Bq7Ax%2BphMmwZfrzyoEMcdfBenzSfntu%2B%2FbfIP&RelayState=%2FPanopto%2FPages%2FViewer.aspx%3Fid%3D10159379-7eca-4549-8581-ab9500c9ecd9&SigAlg=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2F09%2Fxmldsig%23rsa-sha1&Signature=pM%2ByYul65Y0mHI%2BGMXmblP73E%2BURD5W1045VjGi6hjs1%2FXKsPFVlMlHRFGBWK5uEAGv5pJjzaDreU1sP6ml5rt3vSNzPKILHMc%2BSuYN92WcI7jQ7hZ2Tm%2F%2BObZBEU1D84jpHwe9C0wGNK5tGeNrYCCyOSbaW1WQv7yEI%2BC9TxSqkTsqaINCfcdU8maWsz%2FOt2OorkFcfOmAtYdggPwAZwifE3KrteWcExkIbY9S%2BsEkmMcaoce20V%2Boimifw9LOVlbAl6ibNmj7CjniG%2FGzMqKYgOAU20%2BTXeBCUN2K7631c%2BrCA%2Bap1oU7ywhOB6A9sqqaHyDTM0RLyMrKSM9zONg%3D%3D https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/us/memento-mori-nun.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/us/memento-mori-nun.html https://undergradcareers.nd.edu/navigating-your-career-journey---moreau/ certainly a high achiever and may even be an overachiever, her academic successes provided her with confidence, and her social relationships provided her with mental and emotional support. Don’t get me wrong, Mae was human and being human entails imperfection. It means dealing with pain, dealing with loss, and dealing with distress. But Mae found this early on, and accepted that suffering is a crucial part of our lives. She found that suffering “is always there, but it is about how to respond to suffering with God.” (“5 Minutes” by Aria Swarr – Moreau FYE Week Six) Only by understanding suffering and why we suffer can we move on to understand how we respond to it. Mae found that responding to suffering through self-reflection was the most ideal method of coping with pain. Mae focused on healthy reflections, on how she could learn to be a better person, to grow and develop as individuals, to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy ways of reflecting on herself. Mae’s recognition of herself has always aided her in forming lifelong relationships, as seen from those of us present at this funeral. Mae has always had faith in fate, and her belief that “love never fails and will always find a way to have its way.” (Tattoos on the Heart by Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J. – Moreau FYE Week Seven) has really shone through in her life. Whether it be romantic relationships or platonic ones, Mae has always believed that a mutual effort is needed in order to sustain the bond and has never wasted time supporting a connection that was not both sided. She kept this in mind while making new friends, while finding new partners, while connecting and reconnecting again with her family members. Though Mae valued her relationships greatly, to the point where she was willing to drop individual accomplishments for the sake of the other, she was also level headed when choosing relationships worth her time. She supported relationships in which participants treated each other with tenderness and looked down upon ones where an imbalance of power existed. She found that it was important for both to be willing to build and help the other develop to become a better form of themselves and has worked to recognize this type of bond throughout her life. Walking alongside Mae through her life has been very lifechanging. She was different in a way that brightened up the people around her, supportive in a way that made us feel at home, and understanding of both herself and of the people around her. She found joy in the little things in life, chose others over herself, and was always there to offer help, advice, or just be an audience. Mae was a truly unique person, and she will be dearly missed by all of us present. Word Count: 1024 https://grottonetwork.com/make-an-impact/transform/why-does-god-allow-suffering/?utm_source=moreau&utm_medium=class&utm_campaign=spring_2022 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/35977/files/523831?module_item_id=167962