I believe that I am getting better by continuously putting myself in positions to grow… I have mentioned my Gap Year before, but I am not sure If I have ever mentioned why I chose to take it. Surprisingly, it was not because of COVID, although I will admit, it worked out nicely. I made the decision to take a gap year in the library of my high school months before I even heard about the global pandemic. It was out of desperation. For a long time, I did not feel like myself. Each year of Highschool was a buffer, an opportunity to get better, but as a senior, I did not have another year. College was approaching, and to me, college felt like the official start to my life. I did not want to start my life out on the wrong foot, so I took a gap year; Yet another buffer to get better. I spent my time in Chicago, and although I did learn a lot, I never got better like I had hoped. This made my decision to take a gap year feel meaningless, like I wasted another year of my life. And it was a slap in the face really. The problem of going to college not feeling like myself persisted, and I could not take another gap year this time. I had to suck it up and go. It was hard at first - really hard. There were times I wanted to quit, times I cried, and times I wished it would be better. However, through my first six weeks at college I have experience firsthand that through classes like Moreau, that both the University of Holy Cross and Notre Dame are setting me up to get better by making me think and grow. The difference between the gap year and college is I am put into more positions to grow, and as a result, I really feel like I am growing. I can confidently say that I learned something about myself in each week of Moreau. I learned that I am constantly trying to be vulnerable… Dr. Brown mentioned that being vulnerable means “in part to let loose, to be the full authentic version of yourself”. Previously, I interpreted the “let loose” ((“The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown - Moreau FYE Week One) as a metaphor for pouring out your feelings onto a trusted friend and being vulnerable that way. Now I see that the terms are connected. I must let loose and be the full authentic version of myself. To me this means just being natural. So many times, I find myself in conversations feeling awkward. Worry about what to say next, using visual cues to see how to people indirectly respond to what I say, and this puts pressure on myself to be someone I am not. I must eliminate these feelings by letting loose and being the full authentic version of myself. I also realized the importance of being vulnerable from watching the Ted Talk for this weeks QQC. It made me think about how for such a long time I was not being vulnerable, and if I wanted to change for the better, I had to start there. So, I did. I tried to be very vulnerable in my response. Week one set a standard for honesty and contemplation in my https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0&feature=youtu.be responses. This introspective approach I took to answering the QQC’s is the reason that I learned a lot about myself along the way, and I have week one to thank for that. I believe that my weaknesses are conquerable… This week’s QQC was awesome. I was excited to see that it was searching for self-knowledge because that was something I have being doing everyday for the past couple years of my life. I am always thinking throughout the day, concentrating on my feelings, trying to understand them, and this week’s video really helped with that. David brooks mentioned that “Atom I is built by building on your strengths. Atom II is built by fighting your weaknesses.” (“Should You Live For Your Resume… or your Eulogy?” by David Brooks – Moreau FYE Week Two) Atom II is the mindset where you are at piece with yourself, and it was very appealing to me at the time, and still is, because that was the mindset I was and am striving for. The problem I was having in trying to get there is I was too focused on an Atom I mindset. What I mean by that, is in trying to get back to my original self I was focusing too much on trying to get back at what I was good at. David Brooks showed me that I can never get back to what I was good at because my weaknesses will keep getting in the way. This week’s QQC made me think a lot about my weaknesses. I literally think I watched the video 13 times because it was so interesting to me. Somewhere along the line I heard Brooks talked about a signature sin, the biggest weakness, and it made me think about mine. I feel like I have a good grasp on it. There is a constant war going on in my head between atom I and atom II. I am conscious of this war as it is happening, yet I always let atom I win. Now that I know to show atom II some love it had been something I have been trying to implement into my daily life and I believe that is working, and my weaknesses are slowly being conquered. I believe I am slowly starting to understand my faith journey… This was a very useful QQC video for me and it relates a lot to my situation. From the start of my Gap year, I was convinced that I was going to be better by the end of it and accomplish my goal. I lied to myself really. I tried to tell myself that one of these days I was going to wake up and at some random point in my day I was going to have some life changing revelation that made my whole life make sense to me. This never happened, and I felt hopeless. But Father Pete showed me that “Instead of despair keep believing the next tug will break loose that insight that’s needed most” (“The Role of Faith in Our Story” by Father Pete McCormick – Moreau FYE Week Three) Here, I learned that problems get solved over time and that it my job to have faith they will work itself out. This quote also made me think back to a car ride I shared with my Uncle Chris in the summer before college. My mom always told me that me and Uncle Chris were the same. She said we were both thinkers. I had to drive with him, alone to meet grandparents, and the night before the ride I had a feeling that I was going to have the chance to open to him. I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlLWTeApqIM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlLWTeApqIM https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28124/modules/items/109430 was also desperate in thinking that Uncle Chris was going to give me some answer that made all my problems make sense. I did end up having the chance to open to him, and like Ms. Brown would have wanted me too, I let loose and opened to him. I was vulnerable. The conversation was good, and eye opening. He pounded me with questions, and I told him that like I said before I was hoping that one day it would all make sense. But, when I said it out loud to him, I could hear how that made no sense at all, and instead learned and understood that my story will play out over time and faith is going to have a big role in it. I believe that I do not have to be perfect anymore and I need to be imperfect… I realize now that I have 1,316 words and if I continue my current format, I will be well over the limit. I am a perfectionist, and in a perfect world I would finish this out and turn something in that is probably 3,000 words, but I really believe I do not have to be perfect anymore. That puts a lot of pressure on myself, and as I am reflecting on my QQC’s now I realize I put a lot of pressure on myself too. As I mentioned before, when I answered the first QQC thoughtfully and fully, I set a standard to reach that level excellence each week with the next QQC. I took a lot of time on the QQC’s and all schoolwork for that matter. I get this uneasy feeling in my stomach when I do work that is not to the best of my ability, but the problem I am running into right now is that I never feel like I am doing the best work I can do. I have this stuck mindset where I think that if I do the best work possible then I will impress the people that read it and I will somehow feel smarter and better about myself, but that is an atom I mentality right there. Always striving for success of getting a good grade, trying to be perfect, and as a result, I am not giving myself the opportunity grow my Atom II mindset by being imperfect. I have imperfections. My signature sin is that I am aware of the struggle in my head throughout my daily life and I always let atom I win. This inflicts bad feelings upon me. It feels like it is the same struggle each day, same feelings, and no improvements sometimes. It feels like the problem is here to say. I experience these feelings the most in my conversations with people throughout the day. Before, I was able to connect with everyone, but now I feel like it is hard for me to connect with anyone at all, even my own family sometime. It is weird. “Feeling both good and bad about a friend, however, is the first sign of a toxic friendship.” (“5 Signs You’re in a Toxic Friendship” – Olivia T. Taylor – Moreau Week 4) I sense that with the friends I have I indirectly give them bad feeling about our friendship. I feel bad because I think I am being a bad friend, but it is most frustrating because I am not trying to be. I always think I say and do the wrong things, which I guess could be classified as social anxiety. However, I do not like to view it that way. I just like to view it as I am making the wrong decision. Picking Atom I. To me, picking Atom II is being vulnerable, honest, okay with yourself, and I must have faith that it will work. As I said before, I was able to connect with people well and I had life giving relationships. I wrote about these in the poem from week six. But as I wrote the poem I was scared. Since I had this feeling that I am not able to connect with people anymore, I feared I was not capable to https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/relationships/signs-of-toxic-friendships/ https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/relationships/signs-of-toxic-friendships/ make friendships like anymore. I would not have any more more people to look back on fondly and write about one day. Are my life-giving friendships over? As I write this integration, I am confident they are not. Just recently I have been seeing massive improvements in my mentality, specifically in my ability to connect with people. It is very encouraging. And it is a result of my constant effort to be vulnerable, my true self, so that I can see my weaknesses and work on them. In being vulnerable and focusing on Atom II I have stopped worrying about being perfect and feeling the pressure that comes with this burden. These efforts have been working at untying this big knot I have in my life, and although it is still tied, I have faith that it will be untied soon. I must trust in this process, because “Trust and faith are inexplicably tied, and the more that you activate your faith, the stronger it will become, and the more that you will trust in the outcome and his impeccable timing.” (“Two Notre Dames: Your Holy Cross Education” – by Father Kevin Groves – Moreau Week five) https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=859bc1a8-0d0f-4eb4-a1c1-d0a45c429187 https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=859bc1a8-0d0f-4eb4-a1c1-d0a45c429187