Claudia O’Sullivan
Moreau Integration One
October 15, 2021

Going to college, most of your life changes and this switch-up allows you to reflect and decide how you want to conduct your new life. However, it sometimes creates room to lose touch with your actual self in the search for who you want to be. Here lies the balance between growth and inauthenticity. Gratefully, I think Notre Dame’s family and value oriented community promotes growth and prevents falling into ingenuity. Below are 3 personal beliefs and explanations that I have formed so far in this voyage of self discovery!

1. I believe my purpose is to help others 1) keep their will to live and persevere and 2) remind them how much they matter.
	
Both my sister and my good friend Pablo fought cancer when they were kids. When I ask them about the hardest part of the battle, they have similar replies: 1) maintaining a will to keep fighting and 2) feeling so close to death for so long. Their experiences completely changed my understanding of faith and how I want to lead my life. 

First, they are both religious now. In those times of alienation and struggle, religion served as a reminder to them that they should have a will to keep fighting because they matter. It showed them that they are supposed to be here for a reason, and it gave them control in a situation that felt helpless. Religion also reframes your perspective on mortality - whether it’s because there’s an afterlife or just because you know you should spend every minute you have on this planet with intention. In the words of Carla Harris, “While we can all get more money, more houses, etc., we can never get more time. Therefore, we should be extremely intentional with it and spend it in a way that we get the largest return on our time” ("2021 Laetare Medalist Address" by Carla Harris - Moreau FYE Week Five). In this shift in perspective, there is an appreciation for mortality. If I thought I had eternity, I wouldn’t have the same commitment to my life and loving others. 

I hope that for others I can do what religion did for them. I learned that I want to spend my time reminding people why they should have a will to wake up every day and how special they are. Whether it’s someone fighting cancer or a senior citizen, everyone is a perfect puzzle piece to the world and sometimes it just takes a little extra love and inspiration to remember that. Fr. McCormick’s tips were to 1) be patient 2) keep a fresh perspective 3) remain hopeful and 4) don’t do it alone (“The Role of Faith in Our Story” by Fr. Pete McCormick - Moreau FYE Week Three). Whether through volunteering at Holy Cross Village or having late night heart-to-hearts with my friends, if I can help anyone implement any of this advice in their own life, I’ll be living for my eulogy baby!

2. I believe that to grow in the healthiest way, I need to keep fidelity to my past self and be honest with myself. 

	I believe that often the worst things lead to the best ones. It’s like that cliche saying - the cracks in your heart are where the light comes in. The happiest time of my life followed the time where I felt the saddest and least inspired. I didn’t realize I was on quicksand until I fell in. And even though it hurt for a bit, I am so grateful I fell in because it allowed me to reflect and change everything that wasn’t working for me. But I don’t think it should take depression or suffering to realize that life is about continual growth and internalizing that our imperfections are human. As David Brooks pointed out: “We're often not taught to recognize the sin in ourselves, in that we're not taught in this culture how to wrestle with it, how to confront it, and how to combat it” (“Should You Live for your Resume or Your Eulogy?” by David Brooks - Moreau FYE Week Two). Not being taught to wrestle those “sins”, speaking for myself, pushes one to try to block it all out. In trying to ignore all of the imperfections in my life, I inevitably numbed both the good and the bad. Dishonesty with myself just led to faulty relationships and prevented actual happiness. And although it hurt badly to confront everything within myself, that pain reminded me that it was a battle worth fighting. As Brene Brown stated: “I’m so grateful because this vulnerability means I’m alive” (“The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown - Moreau FYE Week One).

	I believe an important part of my journey of improvement lies in keeping fidelity to my past self. If I try to act like that past version of myself never existed and don’t empathize with how I acted, it’s not loving and productive for my current self. Miley Cyrus once said in an interview: “Be curious, not furious.” That is my favorite quote of all time. When she mentioned it, she was talking about how she’s sober because she found that she is her worst self when under the influence. But she said that, in her path towards sobriety, whenever she got mad at herself, she just made it harder to be sober. Because when she was “furious” at herself, she wasn’t making an effort to understand why she acted the way she did. I hope that as I continue to grow in these next 4 years, whenever I do something that I am not proud of, I am able to be “curious” as to why I did it, vulnerable, and honest so I can improve. 

3. I believe that I must learn to love the tension between two opposing ideas, in other words, the “grey area.”
	
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said: “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Whether it’s trying to find truth in the current “epistemic crisis” or befriending people in college who were raised completely different than me, I’m learning that sometimes truth lies in juggling and accepting two opposing thoughts. It’s similar to accepting both religion and science. Although they sometimes conflict, they are both means of searching for truth and can work together to help us understand how the world works and our purpose in it. In the past, I would run away from this type of conflict. But, I’ve learned that if I accept an extreme then I’ll never reach any truth. As Adichie explained, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story (“Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Moreau FYE Week Seven)”. If I only feel comfortable with a single story, I’ll never understand any person or culture completely and be able to listen to them completely. In the article on toxic friendships in week 4, it mentioned that “attention is one of the rarest forms of love” ("5 Signs You’re in a Toxic Friendship" by Olivia T. Taylor - Moreau FYE Week Four). When I rely on single stories out of fear of complication, I can’t give that unbridled attention to others where I’m listening fully.

Not to mention, I believe this tension is what life's all about. Nothing is black and white, which is what makes it so special when you find a love for something or someone that makes none of that discomfort matter. In the words of Fagerberg, “When we experience these moments — either by giving love or receiving it — then we realize what is fundamental. We have been swimming in waters that feel bottomless, but on such occasions our toes just touch the bedrock. And as love dawns, so does our sight” (“Faith Brings Light to a Dark World” by Professor David Fagerberg - Moreau FYE Week Three). There wouldn’t be a point to life if there was an answer. And since there isn’t, when you find something that helps you catch your breath when you’re drowning in those “bottomless” waters, it’s the most perfect thing.