w Moreau Capstone Integration Mission Statement I see life as an opportunity to help the people around you and bring them to a better satisfaction level of life. Humans are created to be social creatures, so I believe that I have a human obligation to the people around me. Everyone deserves love. You, as a person, should see the people that the world calls “outcast” and show them that there is really no such thing. I try to do this in my life whenever I can. In my high school, there was always this one boy that no one talked to. There was no particular reason for it, rather than they judged him for his baggy polos and greasy hair. I took my time to introduce myself and strike up a conversation. During talking to him, he was nothing but sweet and even a little funny. Every day I would go to my class with him, I would chat with him, even when my classmates and even my boyfriend at the time would snicker about it. When the time came to go off to college after graduation, this boy texted me a long paragraph about how grateful he was that I would talk to him. He had a lot of family and mental health problems, so he was glad that he could escape from these things even in the five minutes we chatted each day. I have never once regretted talking to this boy; I treated him like a human being while others would talk behind his back, and it helped him through things happening in his life. You never know the circumstances of someone’s life, and it can help to do something as little as saying hi when walking into the classroom. My relationships in my life are very important to me. Everyone deserves to have good, healthy relationships in their lives. No one should be completely alone or even have to feel that way. God says that everyone is supposed to love their neighbors, and if he gave me a heart with such a capability for love, why wouldn’t I use it to its fullest abilities? I help everyone and anyone that I am able to. When I got my first job at sixteen, I was ecstatic to start making my own money. When my first few paychecks came in, I quickly spent them on fun things just because I could. Soon, I realized that the things I was spending all this money on were things that some people will never have the money to buy. I began to think about every purchase I made. Was this new skirt that I was going to buy something that I really needed? Is this second pair of sneakers really necessary when some people don’t even have a first? These self-reflecting questions led me to change. When I got my next paycheck after this, I went straight to the convenience store and bought bags full of toiletries and drove straight to the homeless shelter in my town. After dropping off these things, I had a smile on my face bigger than any skirt or sneakers could ever give me. I realized I had the ability to help the people around me, and I used this to spread love and give. As I have said that it is important to help people around me, I also see it as important to remember that I am a person as well and to focus on activities that will better me morally and in worldly ways. This means that I want to grow in ways that are physical, like working towards successful work place achievements, but also in an emotional and mental way. I want to find my own happiness, and not have to rely wholly on anyone else for that. Though it is important to have others that you can rely on, you have to realize that no one can love the people around them without loving themselves first. I have learned these things the hard way in life. Before this second semester of my freshman year, I had not really been outside of a relationship since I was in eighth grade. This obviously shaped the kind of person I was. Always having a boyfriend, especially during such formative years of my life, I had began to fully rely on another person for my own happiness. When I got out of a relationship a few months ago, I realized how big of a problem this was. I realized that I needed to change this or risk never being fully happy with myself ever in my life. So, the last few months I have dedicated to bettering me, for me. I have decided that I am taking measures for my own growth and becoming a better person for this. Even though this belief is a fairly new addition to my mission statement, I believe it is just as important as any other part. Whatever way my life ends up going, I want to be able to make myself happy with what I have and use that happiness to infect the people around me. I want to leave the world better than I found it, and I want to help the people around me to do the same. Saying this, I believe that nothing is ever truly set in stone. My mission statement and what I hold most important may reshape throughout life as I learn and grow. All of life is a learning experience. You never actually leave the classroom when you graduate; it just gets a lot bigger. I may have left this Moreau classroom for the last time on Monday, but I will use the things I learned in it to guide me through the rest of my life. I know this is your last time teaching a Moreau class, and I am grateful for the things you have shared with me. I hope that you too can grow as a person and adapt your mission statement, as no one’s is ever perfect. Thank you for helping me form mine into what I have and helping form me in to who I am today.