Microsoft Word - Zhao_Annie_Week8_Integration.docx Annie Zhao Professor Oswald Moreau FYE 4 March 2022 The Calm, Relaxed Life of Annie Zhao It’s hard to think about what my legacy will be when I am still so young. As a first-year student in college, I still do not know what I want study, where I want to live, who I want in my life. These questions make it difficult for me to wonder about what my eulogy will say. But no matter what, I suppose that if I die with no regrets, if I did satisfied with how I lived my life, I can have no complaints. I suppose the following is how I would like people to see my life: “It’s only by stepping farther back and standing still that we can begin to see what that canvas (which is our life) really means, and to take in the larger picture.” (Why we need to slow down our lives by Pico Iyer – Moreau FYE Week One) When Annie was younger, she focused too much on the small, microscopic aspects of my life and found it difficult to get a macroscopic perspective on where she stood and where she needed to improve. She needed to start thinking long-term, rather than getting crazy about tiny, short-term events and their consequences. She needed to stop looking at the different parts of my life as separate entities and realize that they are all interconnected and come together as one, my life. She used to a life of fast-facts, multitasking, and squeezing time as much as she could. She was not retaining most of the information she was cramming into my mind, and Annie lost out on a lot of social quality time and on joining fun clubs. She then started taking more study breaks to spend more time with her friends and picked up some smarter homework habits. Slowly, she started retaining more information in the long term and spent more time with her friends. “He did a lot of things people did not think was priestly. He was entrepreneurial.” ("Hesburgh" by Jerry Barca and Christine O’Malley – Moreau FYE Week Two) Annie truly inspired change in the right direction just as Father Hesburgh did. Although she did not have as large of an impact like he did, she changed the lives of the people around her in a significant way, even if it was small. “We try to suppress the thought of death, or escape it, or run away from it because we think that’s where we’ll find happiness,” she stated. “But it’s actually in facing the darkest realities of life that we find light in them.” (Meet the Nun Who Wants You to Remember That You Will Die by Ruth Graham – Moreau FYE Week Three) One of the greatest inner battles Annie struggled with was the battle between living in the moment and living for the future. On the one hand, tomorrow is not promised, and she obviously did not want to spend my last few hours doing homework. On the other hand, her chances of dying the next day were slim, and she knew she would regret not working hard in college. Annie found a balance in between that Ruth Graham expresses, that of which we keep death in mind so that we don’t solely do dreadful activities, but we do not lose sight of our goals and ambitions. Until Annie’s last day, she lived every day without regrets. “You have to know yourself first - your values, interests, personality, and skills (VIPS) - before you can make effective career choices.” (Navigating Your Career Journey – Moreau FYE Week Four) Annie never had clear VIPs. She valued spending her time wisely and being financially stable. She valued using my time and skills doing what she wanted to do, not what people told her to do. “Annie always had a passion for the inequality in education and opportunities based on race and class, even if she didn’t know it at first” (Conversation with friend, February 20th, 2022, Week 5) She made lots of money as a software engineer and retired pretty early. With some passive income, Annie travelled the world with her husband and her pets, learning from different cultures and experiences. In her free time, Annie journaled about her life, and later that journal would be refined and published into one of the best-selling nonfiction novels of this century. In addition, she was on the board for multiple companies that focused on providing higher quality education to children at a young age. When it came to emotions, Annie realized at a young age that understanding what she felt rather than delving on why she felt a certain way contributed to her well-being much better. “In other words, we can spend endless amounts of time in self-reflection but emerge with no more self-insight than when we started. ("The Right Way to Be Introspective" by Tasha Eurich– Moreau FYE Week Six) Annie was always a lot happier not thinking about the reasons she felt a certain way. She wondered if she would end up knowing herself less by not thinking about the why’s, but she felt better, and what could be better than feeling happy? Annie often found herself in a dilemma of analyzing her every move or just moving through the motions. Part of her always felt like if she did not analyze myself, she would not know herself at all, and every day would turn into a blur. On the other hand, when she just at in the moment, feeling what she needed to feel without turning that feeling into anything more than it is, she was happier. Annie thus concluded that a life worth lived is a combination of the what’s and the why’s: not living in ignorance of actions, but also not overthinking everything. There are some places where what’s are important and some where why’s are important. Lastly, Annie led a life well lived within the communities she found herself in. "Let us help each other, all together, to remember that the “other” is not a statistic, or a number” (Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone by Pope Francis– Moreau FYE Week Seven). We hear so many statistics about other people, like how many people in a state are illiterate, how accessible food is to students. But because we may not be included in this statistic, we do not feel the immediate reality of it. But when you meet somebody in this category, everything feels a bit more tangible. You’re more empathetic. You remember that these percentages represent human beings. With this thought in mind, Annie made sure never to treat an issue like a statistic; she humanized everything. To Annie, the relationships of a life well-lived obviously included her immediate circle of friends and family, but she also built relationships with strangers that she never met. She became part of a larger community and developed kinship with people she had nothing in common with. She affected people in ways she never would have imagined for the better. She ultimately felt connected with the surroundings of her life, which made her life well lived.