Moreau Integration Professor Thigpen Moreau First Year Experience 15 October 2021 Searching for Me After my first few months of college, I have grown to realize what I am struggling with within myself. The Moreau First Year Experience course has presented me with different ways of dealing with the issues I face as I transition into college. I believe that I am searching for self-love. I frequently find myself hesitating, doubting every decision I take, and worrying about what others think of me. I tend to pick apart my body in the mirror and focus on things that I don’t think compare well to current beauty standards. I have come to the realization that I struggle with self-love, and consequently lack self-confidence. I let this control my life, being somewhat apprehensive of going to campus events without a friend, or doing something on my own where I can be judged. In order to work towards living my life how I want to live it, I need to stop caring what others think of me. In order to do that, I need to develop self-love and confidence. After discovering what my personal issues were, I looked for steps to take to overcome them. For instance, following accounts on Instagram that promote self-love and body-positivity helps me realize that others are going through similar circumstances and there is always a way to overcome them. One account that I follow said “do something today that your future self will thank you for” (@lexxhidalgo), and I have been trying to live by that for the past few weeks. Not only is it helping me avoid procrastination with school work, but it is motivating me to do more for myself. Previously in my Week One QQC, I reflected on Brene Brown’s speech when she said, “They were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were” (“The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown - Moreau FYE Week One). As I look back on this, I realize that there may be exceptions to this provision. I think that this idea of Brene Brown’s applies to a situation where I am trying to change myself to be like someone else I admire, or achieve something in order to prove something to others. The exception is that if you are working on improving yourself for yourself, it is okay. However, the separation between these is quite a large gray area, as anything in life is. In my case, I believe that I must let go of embodying others in order to be myself, but I must also change my routine to include things that will benefit my future self. I believe that I can work on myself by redistributing my time away from social media and towards activities where I solely interact with myself. For instance, journaling is something that I want to start doing before going to bed every night, which would replace the hour and a half I spend on my phone. Not only will this hopefully allow me to get more sleep, but I think writing my thoughts down into a tangible form will help me find out more about myself. I also want to start focusing on doing things that I am passionate about doing, and learning when to say no to people when I don’t feel like doing it. I am striving to follow David Brook’s concept in Week 2, where he spoke about two sides of humanity: Adam I and Adam II. He stated, “Adam I is built by building on your strengths. Adam II is built by fighting your weaknesses” Should you Live or your Resume or your Eulogy? by David Brooks- Moreau FYE Week Two). It's important to note that Adam I is the side of yourself you have to prove to others; Adam II is the side focused on the things about yourself that mean something to you. In my opinion, Adam I is always a good thing to pursue; it keeps people adapting and improving themselves. However, Adam II should never be sacrificed for Adam I, for it is Adam II that grounds us to nature, to each other, and to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlLWTeApqIM&t=27s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlLWTeApqIM&t=27s ourselves. While working on becoming comfortable with my own skin and working towards becoming someone I love, I will keep this quote close to me. While it is nice to be reaffirmed by what we are good at (building strengths), I think that this self-improvement journey will be more focused on breaking my weaknesses down and then reubuilding. I believe that reconnecting with my past helps me discover who I am. In Week 6, we created our own “Where I’m From'' poems. Writing about the things that built my childhood, the good memories, and the members of my family who have impacted me made me realize how exactly this has built my personality. My childhood and my family caused me to appreciate every little action that someone does- every little detail that makes me feel comforted and loved. I think that is what caused my top character strength in Week 2 to be “appreciation of beauty.” To elaborate, I always receive an uplifting feeling when I walk around campus on a stressful day and catch a glimpse of the Dome, or take a trip to the Grotto. It’s nice to think about the time put into creating these symbolic structures, the tradition behind them, and how people bond over them which makes me push past my personal struggles and be reminded that there are bigger things in life than a Calculus exam. I believe that I am pursuing strong and healthy relationships. I want to surround myself with people who encourage me to be my best self, people who don’t bring me down, and people who I can laugh with and feel comfortable being myself. In Week Four, the curriculum focused on forging life-giving relationships and I think that the following quote couldn’t explain my desires in a better way. “Think back to a time where you felt uplifted, hopeful, and happy after hanging out with a friend. The best kind of friendships are the ones where you leave with a smile on your face, knowing you’re both growing to be better people and that you’re helping each other get there” (5 Signs You're in a Toxic Friendship by Olivia T. Taylor, Grotto- Moreau Week https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/relationships/signs-of-toxic-friendships Four). Growing up in a small town meant that there weren’t many new people for me to meet, and consequently I was surrounded by the same friend group for years. Entering college and meeting so many people all of a sudden made me realize that I can decide who I was to spend my time with; I didn’t have to make the relationships work if I didn’t want to. Through meeting and encountering the personalities of so many people in such a short amount of time, I think that I have started to decide what qualities I look for in a friend and I will continue to search for these defining characteristics while making friends. I believe that I am looking for my purpose in life, and this purpose could mean many things. First, it involves my career, as that is what a large portion of our lives is centered around. I am currently pursuing a major in environmental engineering, but I am not completely certain about it. It is important to me that I find a career that supports my state of living comfortably, allows me to have a family and flexible working hours. Due to the fact that so much of our time is spent working, I feel stressed in making the decision on what I want to do for hours and hours. While this decision seems daunting, I try to remind myself that no one really knows, for sure, what they want to do for their career. Everyone simply applies for jobs, works, adapts, switches positions, gets promoted, or applies to different companies. Therefore, there is always time for change; there are always opportunities to keep looking for something that interests me. Father Kevin Grove C.S.C explained that, “if we’re really searching for truth in whatever we study, then we need both faith and reason” (Two Notre Dames: Your Holy Cross Education by Father Kevin Grove- Moreau FYE Week Five). In order to find my career, I need to follow my passion, but first I have to find what I am passionate about. I think that this comes with learning who I am, as I mentioned earlier. However, if I am searching for an answer about what I am supposed to do, I need to have faith in myself and in God. If I trust the process that God is bringing me on, while https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=859bc1a8-0d0f-4eb4-a1c1-d0a45c429187 also trusting myself along the way, I am sure to follow my passion. However, reason is also necessary, because in order to survive on my own, I must stay true to my responsibilities, even if they aren’t as pleasant as following my dreams. I believe that the other side of finding my life purpose will always adapt and change, but right now I believe that it is to find happiness through living in the moment and finding myself. In Week 3, one particular quote stood out to me: “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 God has created you to be.” (The Role of Faith in Our Story by Father Pete C.S.C. - Moreau FYE Week Three). I am told that on my journey of self-discovery, I must forget about success, productivity, and failure; although these three things are what I go through here at Notre Dame. I find myself focusing on the fact that I didn’t score high enough on my calc exam, or spending a large amount of my time on homework. Although this may seem important now, they tend to consume most of my thoughts and distract me. In order to discover more about myself, I need to make time to focus on my feelings, desires, thoughts, etc. I will focus less on how I can do something “the best,” or in the most successful way, and instead remain faithful and trust in God and myself to respond how I would authentically respond. After that, I will find who I am and learn to love that myself as well. Altogether, my transition to college has taught me many things about myself. Most of my courses taught me the importance of hard work ethic, but Moreau taught me not to “cultivate the mind and the expense of the heart,” as Father Moreau is famous for saying. The social life here at Notre Dame has altered my perspective on relationships and encouraged me to work on building stronger ones. Notre Dame, in and of itself, has helped me start to understand myself a little bit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcZMeqWWOIs&feature=emb_logo better. Now that I know what I must work on, I will strive to find time between my studies in order to spend time working on myself.