Elena Que Maria Finan Moreau FYE 15 October 2021 Value, Perspective, and Responsibility Throughout the past month and a half, the Moreau First Year Experience has invited me to more deeply examine my personal beliefs and ideas and challenged me to grow emotionally and spiritually. This experience has allowed me to not only learn more about myself but consider how I can improve myself and my relationships with others. After examining my main takeaways from the past seven weeks, I have discovered the core beliefs that shape who I am and how I make decisions. These relate to my views of myself, my treatment of others, and my perspective of the future. I believe that my worth stems from my inherent value, that I need to challenge myself both personally and outwardly, and that I have a responsibility to care for the well-being of those around me. I believe that my worth stems from my inherent value, not from the validation of others. In a world that measures external success so closely, it’s so easy to tie that to self-worth and believe that any value I have is assigned to how others view me. However, in “The Power of Vulnerability, Dr. Brown says, “You're imperfect and hard-wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging” (“The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown - Moreau FYE Week One). This demonstrates that while I may not be perfect, that doesn’t mean I have any less worth. My flaws don’t determine how good of a person I am, how successful I will be, or how deserving I am of love. I didn’t always believe this. Especially in high school, when pressure to perform well in order to have a bright future was so intense, it was common to assign my value to my test scores, grades, and GPA. One bad day could send me spinning and cause me to question https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0&t=1s my worth altogether. However, struggles and mistakes forced me to realize that even if I didn’t do as well as I wanted to, I was still here and I still found happiness in other places. There’s more to life than those external measures of success and there are so many other ways to live a fulfilling life. In “The Role of Faith in Our Story,” Fr. Pete says, “The greatest journey you will ever go on is one of self-discovery. On this journey, success, productivity and failure are an afterthought” (“The Role of Faith in Our Story” by Fr. Pete McCormick - Moreau FYE Week Three). While we never want to choose failure, it did teach me that I couldn’t place my value on how successful I was, because that’s simply unsustainable. How deserving I am of love does not change based on how I do on a test, or how much homework I get done, or what job I have. A few weeks ago, we were challenged to write a poem about where we’re from. This caused me to consider what had influenced my childhood and shaped me into who I am today. After doing so, I know I grew up in a place where I wasn’t any better or worse than anyone else based on how outwardly successful I was. What mattered more was I treated others and my attitude and actions outside of school. It’s easy to overlook, but where I grew up played a very meaningful role in shaping me. When describing my home during my Where I’m From poem, I said, “It’s a small, quiet town in a flyover state//But it’s something special and it’ll always be home” (“Where I’m From” by Elena Que – Moreau FYE Week Six). This honed in on the fact that I may have not grown up in an exciting environment, but I had a loving home that shaped me into who I am today. It may still be difficult at times, but that strong foundation formed my belief in intrinsic value. Failures are a part of life, and despite my external performance, I continue to have inherent value every day. I believe that I need to challenge myself both personally and outwardly in order to form well-rounded perspectives. These are both important, yet in very different ways. As I said before, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcZMeqWWOIs https://d.docs.live.net/06feec4207ebee7c/Notre%20Dame/Freshman/Fall%20Semester/Moreau/Poem%20Week%206.pdf our personal growth is highly important for our self-discovery, yet external growth also has a place in the world. In the video “Should you live for your résumé ... or your eulogy?” David Brooks says that “Adam 1 is finding your strengths, and Adam 2 is fighting our weaknesses” (“Should You Live For Your Resume… or Your Eulogy?” by David Brooks - Moreau FYE Week Two). Adam 1 is more focused on resume-building skills and outward success, while Adam 2 is about personal improvement. It’s important for me to still build up my external skills to set myself up for success in life and form good habits such as working hard, being perseverant, and organizing my priorities. In doing so, I’ll form a deeper appreciation for the effort that people put into their goals in order to support themselves and those around them. At the same time, Adam 2 has high importance in forcing me to examine how I can improve myself and better care for those around me. It may not have a tangible measure, but it’s essential for building lifelong relationships and becoming someone that I’m proud to be. Flaws are natural and a part of life, but it’s still important to consider how I can diminish them in order to be a better person. In my time so far at Notre Dame, I’ve found how important it is to have a good balance between being a dedicated student while still making time for personal reflection and growth. In the video “Two Notre Dames: Your Holy Cross Education,” Fr. Kevin Grove says 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 Fr. Kevin Grove - Moreau FYE Week Five). This demonstrates the importance of balancing my conflicting ideas and developing both sides of my beliefs. Faith and reason often tend to contrast each other and people tend to side with one or the other, but I need to challenge myself to integrate both of them to have a better understanding of the world around me. By pushing myself to improve both https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlLWTeApqIM https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=859bc1a8-0d0f-4eb4-a1c1-d0a45c429187 internally and externally, I can have a better perception of the truth and a deeper appreciation of the world. I believe that I have a responsibility to do my part and care for the well-being and happiness of those around me. It’s easy to get focused on myself, because personal growth is important, but it’s just as important to channel that growth in ways that can benefit others. This strongly connects to being aware of toxic relationships and ensuring that I both don’t initiate one and that those around me don’t get involved in them. In the video “Because I Love You, Double Whiskey,” they say, “Because I love you, you listen as I cry. You hug me and say that it’s okay. You take all the blame” (“Because I Love You, Double Whiskey” by One Love Foundation - Moreau FYE Week Four). This is a common way to get caught up in an abusive relationship because people tend to blame themselves in order to diffuse a bad situation and make conflict go away. It happens subtly and naturally, and I have a responsibility to watch for situations like this. This can be hard for me at times because I’m a nonconfrontational persona and I tend to give the benefit of the doubt, but if someone I know is in a bad situation, it’s even more important to take action. In this way, I’m both improving myself by going out of my comfort zone and looking out for those around me. In another light, it’s important to be conscious of how I’m treating others when it comes to stereotypes and unfair assumptions. Keith Payne says in “How to Think about ‘Implicit Bias’” that “[i]t would be comforting to conclude, when we don’t consciously entertain impure intentions, that all of our intentions are pure. Unfortunately, we can’t conclude that: many of us are more biased than we realize” (“How to Think about ‘Implicit Bias’” by Keith Payne - Moreau FYE Week Seven). Although it’s sad to admit, we live in a world where bias is very prevalent, whether we’re conscious of it or not. Even if I don’t intend it, I know that I also have biases that can negatively impact people in very serious ways. It can be uncomfortable to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwQ5ur9OZ-g https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-think-about-implicit-bias/ admit, but by first acknowledging these biases I can then begin to change them. In failing to do so, I’m letting down people I know and love and preventing both personal growth and societal growth. It’s not easy, and there are times that it’s uncomfortable both for me and for others, but I believe that I have an obligation and a need to care for others and treat them well. From my personal growth to my treatment of others, the Moreau First Year Experience has opened my eyes to important beliefs that have become fundamental to my everyday actions. The way I view and challenge myself has notably changed and I’ve found myself becoming more conscious of how my attitudes can affect me and others. While it isn’t always easy to live out these beliefs and it takes constant reminders, it’s a constant cycle of growth and an important representation of how there are always new opportunities to improve and how I’ll continue to change in the future.