FA21-FYS-10102-64
Professor Oswald
22 April 2022
Pursuing Human Dignity at Notre Dame
	I consider the highest good in life to be human dignity.  People deserve to be valued and respected by virtue of their humanity.  This means that people should be treated ethically no matter what they look like, where they are from, or how poor they might be.  Therefore, my life’s mission is to work to promote human dignity (Personal Mission Statement by - Moreau FYE Week 13).  I believe that a life well lived is a life where one is able to work towards their personal mission statement.  This class has made me realize that I have not done all that I could possibly do in my first year to do this.  The question then becomes: how can I do better in my next three years?  I believe that by taking more time to reflect, continuing to build strong relationships, and pursuing my career, I can do a better job of carrying out my life’s mission.
	The first step to carrying out my life’s mission in the next three years at Notre Dame is to take more time to reflect.  Researchers “have found that it takes an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from a phone call.  Yet such interruptions come every eleven minutes — which means we’re never caught up with our lives'' (“Why we need to slow down our lives” by Pico Iyer - Moreau FYE Week 1).  Taking time to reflect is often far down my priority list.  I’ve found myself far busier than I was at home, having to manage my classwork with clubs, hall commitments, career discernment, and making plans for summer.  This has left me with little time to put all my worries aside and reflect.  But, as this course has taught me, reflection is incredibly important.  This stems from one of the few assurances that we have in life; the fact that we will die.  It's important because it reminds us that we have limited time on this planet to make the impact that we want to (“Meet the nun who wants you to remember that you will die” by Ruth Graham, NYT - Moreau FYE Week 3).  If we want to be as efficient as possible in living a life well lived, we must reflect to see what is working and what is not working.  Is a certain friend someone that we want to continue hanging out with?  Is this really a career that I want to pursue?  Without asking ourselves questions like these, we might never find the best way to follow our mission statements and live a life well lived.  It is important, however, that we reflect in the correct way.  Reflecting can sometimes lead us to struggle in pursuing a life well lived because it makes us sad as we are keenly aware of our own weaknesses (“The right way to be introspective (yes, there’s a wrong way)” by Tasha Eurich - Moreau FYE Week 6).  If I instead ask myself what questions - questions that help us instead see our potential - I can make sure that this reflection is meaningful.
	Applying this practically over my next three years at Notre Dame, I will continue a practice that I recently developed in my God and the Good Life class.  Whether it be writing an essay, doing math homework, or reading GGL interactive essays, I normally do so while sitting on my futon or laying in my bed.  As a result, I often find myself feeling the need to do work while relaxing in bed or on the couch.  In the last few weeks, I have been doing all of my work in places where all I do is complete school work (library, study room).  In doing so, a distinct separation between where work is to be done and where I am able to take time for myself and reflect is created.
	The second step to carrying out my life’s mission in the next three years at Notre Dame is to work to build more numerous and improve upon the ones I already have.  Being raised in a Catholic household, I, like Father Boyle, sometimes struggle to show each other love and appreciation.  As Father Boyle put it, showing others love “was not so available to me in my own Irish Catholic background.  You knew people loved you, but words never brought you to that knowledge” (“Chapter 8: Jurisdiction” by Father Greg Boyle - Moreau FYE Week 7).  While I do love people, my lack of practice has made it difficult to show it.  Given this, while I have some really strong relationships here at school, most are missing something.  And what I have found is that they are missing accompaniment.  Accompaniment is the idea that, as humans, we are partners moving forward for a better future, not just there to help - both parties learn from shared experiences (“Teaching Accompaniment: A Learning Journey Together” by Steve Reifenberg - Moreau FYE Week 9).  I think by showing love for others, I can build stronger and more resilient relationships based on accompaniment.
	But how does this construction of relationships help me carry out my mission statement?  Coming from a relatively liberal school from the suburbs of Philadelphia, my first year at Notre Dame has been a culture shock in many ways.  At home, I was in a sort of filter bubble (“How to Avoid an Echo Chamber” by Paul Blaschko - Moreau FYE Week 11).  Most - if not everyone - agreed with me on political or social issues.  I rarely had to debate anyone who disagreed with me.  This has not been the case here at Notre Dame.  The student population is far more conservative, and I have received pushback for some of my opinions.  For instance one of my friends is a staunch Trump supporter.  I remember one day after our theology class, we went to go eat at LaFortune and I said something about the 2020 election.  He quickly began to describe how he doubted the election’s validity.  This stunned me - I had never actually met a person that felt that way, and seeing the certainty with which he spoke really broke me out of my filter bubble.  By constructing relations of accompaniment with people like this, they will be willing to tell me that they disagree.  And by building more numerous relationships, I will gain more unique perspectives that Notre Dame offers (“The Spirit of Inclusion at Notre Dame” by du Lac - Moreau FYE Week 10).  This ensures that if I have a fault in judgment and am not really acting in the interests of human dignity, these people will recognize it and call me out on it.  By knowing that when I am wrong I will be told, I can better know how to correctly pursue my mission statement.
The final step to carrying out my life’s mission in the next three years at Notre Dame is to discover a career in which I can work to fulfill my mission statement.  Earlier this year, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  While I was (and still am as of now) a political science major, it has never felt right.  Through some career discernment activities and workshops (“Navigating Your Career Journey”  by Meruelo Family Center for Career Development - Moreau FYE Week 4) and discussions with my parents,  advisors, and friends (“Moreau Week 5 QQC by '' - Moreau FYE Week 5), I’ve discovered that I want to transfer to the Mendoza College of Business to be a real estate developer.  What stopped me from applying to Mendoza in the first place was that I wanted to engage in work that would improve the lives of other people.  A career in business did not seem like that kind of work.  Reflecting on the Hesburgh documentary changed my line of thinking on that.  Hesburgh proved that no matter what career you chose, you can make the world a better place (“Hesburgh” by Jerry Barca and Christine O’Malley - Moreau FYE Week 2).  Even though he is a priest, practically the job most directly oriented with making the world a better place, he showed through his work with congress on the Civil Rights Bill that you do not need to be a politician to make meaningful change.  But I cannot grow scared of acting in this way.  As the story of Dean Cole shows us, despite acting in the right way, we can find ourselves in dangerous situations (“I am George Floyd. Except, I can breathe. And I can do something” by Dean G. Marcus Cole - Moreau FYE Week 12).  We need to remain strong in our principles in these moments.  What Cole does when he is harassed by the policman is one such strategy, and one that I plan on using.  Its to think of how our actions will impact others.  While I hope to never end up in a situation like that of Dean Cole, using such a strategy will allow me to stay resolute in following through with my mission statement no matter the situation.  With this in mind, my next three years here at Notre Dame, I will work towards a career in business with my personal mission statement in mind.  I’ll learn why the inequalities in society exist and choose a career and company that is committed to fixing these issues.