1 Schenck Prof. Retartha Moreau Integration 3: Eulogy 4 March 2022 My Eulogy I never thought I would be presenting my own eulogy, but I guess life never goes at planned. Had everything gone as planned to begin with, I would not be attending my own funeral at nineteen years old! However, Notre Dame’s Moreau course decided there would be no graduates at the Class of 2025 commencement ceremony. Instead of being told to prepare for upcoming midterms, freshmen were told to prepare eulogies for their funerals. Some people say our collective demise could have been prevented if we stayed off the grass of God Quad, while others claim we are victims of the most unfortunate hazing act of the 21st century. A few members of the seminary claim the sinner confessed to Father Pete, but his lips are sealed in the name of Catholic law. Regardless of why our lives were cut short, I have spent my time in Heaven thus far reflecting upon whether my life has been well lived. I am regretful to say that I averaged nearly five hours of screen time on my phone each day. Considering I spent eight hours a day sleeping, I spent nearly a third of my waking day talking to people over a screen. I classified these hours as a break from the constant work during my time on earth. However, Pico Lyer discusses in his text Why We Need to Slow Down our Lives that interruption scientists have recently determined it takes 25 minutes to recover from a mere phone call (Lyer 2014). Thus, when I thought was satisfying my addiction to the comfort of staying connected, I was actually adding stress. I was associating satisfaction with joy. Father Michael Himes of Three Key Questions would argue that my association of satisfaction and joy was flawed. Father Himes defines joy as “the sense of the rightness of the way in which one is living one’s life,” while proceeding to specifically denote satisfaction’s detraction to joy (Himes). Unfortunately, I did not recognize my longing for satisfaction as anything other than joyful until my recent passing. I would not say that this aspect of my life was well-lived, but rather comfortable. If I had more time left on earth, I would work on shifting my mindset during this portion of my life from seeking satisfaction to pursuing righteousness. Although my screen time may imply that I was a lazy teenager, I spent most of my days studying or working. I wanted to pursue medicine for as long as I can remember. Referring to Dr. Burmea, a 2021 Domer Dozen honoree, domerdozen.nd.edu discusses how “he was a freshman in high school when his younger sister, at only six years old, was diagnosed with a rare and life-threatening brain tumor that required surgery and left her dependent on a slew of medications to support her endocrine system this served as his motivation to pursue a career in medicine.” (domerdozen.nd.edu: Dr. Burmea). My reason for majoring neuroscience is similar in ways to Dr. Burmea’s reason for conducting groundbreaking biomedical research. My grandmother was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer in her fifties. Although she was given a prognosis of six months to live, she ended up living ten years with her terminal cancer. I decided to pursue neuroscience with hopes of helping others outlive their prognosis twenty times over like my grandmother did. I believe that my inspiration for wanting to study neuroscience is a key component of a well-lived life because I was not inspired by my individual success potential, but rather by the potential success stories of my future patients. Although I majored in neuroscience, I remained open-minded to varying medical specialties. When I told friends and family that I was majoring in neuroscience, they often deduced that neuro was the only branch of medicine I could pursue with such a specific degree. Such a conclusion is expected but fallible according The Undergraduate Career Services for Notre Dame. Referencing how “there seems to be this commonly held belief in our society that a major equals a certain career path,” Notre Dame’s Undergraduate Career Services refutes this belief by discussing how a major does not equate a career (undergraduatecareers.nd.edu). By keeping an open mind to all medical specialties but maintaining good intentions regardless of the specialty, I was on my way to pursuing a well-lived life. It is only unfortunate that Moreau had to end my life for me to finally take time to reflect upon where I was headed. Before I died and subsequently reflected upon where I was headed, I spent hefty time while I was alive reflecting upon where I had been. Although some self-reflection is beneficial, excessive reflection can yield negative results. By studying the relationship between self-reflection and health, Tasha Eurich (PhD) of The Right Way to be Introspective found that “people who scored high on self-reflection were more stressed, depressed and anxious, less satisfied with their jobs and relationships, more self-absorbed, and they felt less in control of their lives” (Eurich PhD 2017). I can confidently say that shame, regret, and remorse stemming from excessive self-reflection substantially contributed to my stress and anxiety. Even though I knew that I could not change the past, I spent immense time wondering where I would be if I had gone the extra mile in a million different circumstances. The substantial amount of time I spent mourning the loss of the inevitable was not contributing to a well-lived life, but rather taking away from it. Had I not spent so much time reflecting upon what could not be changed, I could have put more time towards bettering the future. While I did not show adequate discernment in how much time I spent self-reflecting, I did show adequate discernment in who I spent my time with. In Pope Francis’s Ted Talk on Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone, he discusses how he often asks himself “why them and not me?” when listening to the sick or incarcerated (Pope Francis Ted Talk). I often asked myself this same question. My relationships with those who left me asking “why them and not me?” and how I subsequently helped them were evident of my life being well-lived. Last semester, I would visit an under-resourced South Bend middle school every week to tutor a girl in math. She would confide in me in many topics, from her father’s overdose to her dog being shot. I left every tutoring session wondering why she was going through this and not me. While I did not think I had an impact on her, her new tutor this semester reached out to tell me she missed me. That simple gesture was enough to convince me that my first semester at Notre Dame was well lived, regardless of my death preventing me from finishing the second. Reflecting upon the short life I had, I recognize there are many ways in which my life was not well-lived. I could have spent more time pursuing righteousness rather than seeking satisfaction. I could have spent more time building a better future rather than mourning a past I could not change. However, I recognize that nobody is perfect. There were aspects of my life that were well-lived, from the relationships I built to the career I was building. If only Moreau metaphorically killed us to encourage us to live like we were dying, rather than killing us all for good. Works Cited “2021 Domer Dozen.” Domer Dozen, University of Notre Dame, 9 Sept. 2021, https://domerdozen.nd.edu/.  Eurich PhD, Tasha. “The right way to be introspective (yes, there's a wrong way).” Ideas.ted.com, Ted Conferences, LLC, 2 June 2017, https://ideas.ted.com/the-right-way-to-be-introspective-yes-theres-a-wrong-way/.  Francis, His Holiness Pope. “Why the only future worth building includes everyone.” His Holiness Pope Francis: Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone | TED Talk, Ted Conferences, Apr. 2017, https://www.ted.com/talks/his_holiness_pope_francis_why_the_only_future_worth_building_includes_everyone/transcript.  Himes, Michael. “Three Key Questions.” Lyer, Pico. “Why we need to slow down our lives.” Ideas.ted.com, 4 Nov. 2014, https://ideas.ted.com/why-we-need-a-secular-sabbath/.  “Navigating your career journey - Moreau first year experience course.” Undergraduate Career Services, The University of Notre Dame, 2022, https://undergradcareers.nd.edu/navigating-your-career-journey---moreau/.