Capstone Integration Dot Crumlish Alison Thigpen Moreau First Year Experience - Capstone Integration 29 April 2022 The Capstone of the Arch that Holds the Bridge to a Life Well-Lived: Love For our final week of Moreau, we had to write our own personal mission statement. I found this a very interesting assignment, but it allowed me time to reflect on what I think contributes to a life well-lived, specifically in relation to my own life. The mission statement that I wrote is the following: “It has always been my dream to design something that helps people in life. I will strive to learn as much as I can from others, my academics, and my experiences, because, through learning, I will be able to expand my knowledge and open myself to new opportunities and perspectives. Constantly striving to understand humanity from more than a single point of view will allow me to empathize with others' struggles and help in the best way I can, as well as be a person that brings others together, rather than dividing them. The close relationships I form with others will be meaningful ones that push me to be a better person, while also being rooted in kindness and love. I will not define my success in life by the physical things in my life, whether good or bad, from the grades I receive to the amount of money and things I have. Rather, I will define my success in life by the positive impact I have on the world, however big or small it is, as long as I do my best. The highest good in life is love, God’s love to be precise, and I want to help show others that love.” (Personal Mission Statement - Moreau First Year Experience Week 13). As I look forward to the next three years, it is very easy to get overwhelmed with all of the different decisions that I will have to make and all the experiences I will have. But, when approaching the next three years, I need to keep in mind my ‘mission statement’, and how I can steer my life in a direction that when I look back upon it, I will consider a life well-lived. Like I state in my mission statement, I want to create things that help people. For me, the first step in that journey over the next three years is to pick a major in which I will gain the most knowledge that will help me to achieve this, and like talked about in class, “There is no ‘best major’ out there - but there is a ‘best major for you’” (Navigating your Career Journey by ND - Moreau First Year Experience Week 4). Right now, I am currently on the path to be a mechanical engineer. My biggest struggle with this decision, though, is not being able to other things too, and learn things from other perspectives. That is why I am considering doing a dual degree program with the College of Arts and Letters, specifically a degree in industrial design. When you are creating something, there are always two sides: the actual function of the thing and how it works properly, and then how the user interacts with it and relates to it. I do not want to shut myself off to just the function of an invention with an engineering degree, or closing myself in a bubble. “Bubbles become echo chambers when groups give up on tolerating University of opinion” (How to Avoid an Echo Chamber - Moreau First Year Experience Week 11). I thought this was a really concise and interesting way of saying what is wrong with bubbles in society today. They become echo chambers that only reiterate the same ideas and don’t explore new or different ones. Like I learned in one of my engineering classes, this is something that can shine through in brainstorming sessions, as people like to shut ideas down immediately without exploring them https://undergradcareers.nd.edu/navigating-your-career-journey---moreau/ https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41060/modules/items/143990 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41060/modules/items/143990 more, because they seem infeasible initially. But, some of these ideas turn out to be the best ones. Just like that, I want to understand the industrial design side as well. Understanding people and the world from multiple perspectives is really important to living a life well-lived. One way we can learn to do this is through accompaniment. Like we talked about in class, “One cannot accompany without being accompanied, in the same way someone cannot be a good friend without being open to friendship. This requires a great deal of humility. Not only is it important to walk together with somebody, but one must also learn how to be accompanied – to participate in the reciprocity of accompaniment” (Teaching Accompaniment - Moreau First Year Experience Week 9). I thought this quote was really interesting. I think a lot of us feel bad or guilty having others assist us, or accompany us, and feel like a bother. But in reality, we cannot accompany others ourselves if we are not open to accompaniment. We need to embrace humility and be open to hearing others and their advice, and taking their help when we need it, especially when we strive to be able to accompany others. This is something that can be really hard to do, especially in college. It’s really easy to get caught up in college and feel like just a person in the crowd, and feel like no one really knows you or cares about you genuinely, especially away from your family. “You don’t believe you can be loved. You think if people knew the real you, they wouldn’t love you either” (Growing Up Gay and Catholic - Moreau First Year Experience Week 10). I think this is a way of thinking that a lot of people fall victim to, especially in college. When you compare yourself to others who are loved, but you know you are very different from them, it’s very easy to convince yourself that you just are incapable of being loved. This mindset can easily develop into an intense loneliness, and a feeling of being isolated. Pope Francis discussed this in his Ted https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41060/modules/items/143949 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41060/modules/items/143949 https://grottonetwork.com/keep-the-faith/community/reflective-narrative-about-being-gay-and-catholic/?utm_source=moreau&utm_medium=class&utm_campaign=spring_2022 Talk, explaining how in our society today it is very easy to become like islands (Pope Francis TED Talk - Moreau First Year Experience Week 7). How can we overcome this struggle, though, and embrace ourselves and each other, and embark on a path towards a life well-lived? Just like with accompaniment, the solution has to be to look within ourselves. “Asking what could keep us open to discovering new information about ourselves, even if that information is negative or in conflict with our existing beliefs” (‘The Right Way to Be Introspective’ by Tasha Eurich - Moreau First Year Experience Week 6). Part of living a life well-lived is learning to know yourself, and facing inner conflict. We can only live our best lives when we are our best selves, and we only can be our best selves when we are open to learning about ourselves. There are many divisions in the world, but in reality, all anyone wants is to be loved. To me, the biggest thing at the core of living a life well-lived is love: loving others, and loving who you are, the good and the bad. Even when there are things are people we dislike, we cannot close ourselves off and jump to conclusions. “Each one of us can choose to finally end hate, by ending this separation. We must do something. This is something each one of us can do.” I thought this quote from Dean Marcus Cole was really powerful. Even if hatred and injustice seem like such huge problems that individually we feel like we cannot solve, In reality, it is a matter of each of us resolving that issue in our own lives, closing the separation between us and others, that will solve the problem as a whole. If we each do our part to end hatred, we can overall. This reminded me specifically of a situation at my engineering job. A new intern was hired about a month ago, and he has been sort of demeaning to me and acting like he knows more than me even though I’ve worked there for near a year. At first, I was very upset and hurt, and wanted nothing to do with him, but then I talked to my best friend and listened to his problems at school, https://www.ted.com/talks/his_holiness_pope_francis_why_the_only_future_worth_building_includes_everyone/transcript https://www.ted.com/talks/his_holiness_pope_francis_why_the_only_future_worth_building_includes_everyone/transcript https://ideas.ted.com/the-right-way-to-be-introspective-yes-theres-a-wrong-way/ https://ideas.ted.com/the-right-way-to-be-introspective-yes-theres-a-wrong-way/ not even having mentioned my own situation. And one thing he told me was, “I can never truly hate or dislike someone. Even if I think I hate them at first, they always end up growing on me, because I learn more of who they are and how they think, and I learn to love them for it.” I think learning to love the people who are different from us is one of the most beautiful parts of life, like a broken vase being glued back together, and I think now more than ever, it is important. Since my friend told me this, I’ve been talking to my coworker more, and really learning to appreciate him. Overall, I hope my mission statement will help guide me through the next three years. I want to help people in life, and live a life well-lived. I think the biggest part in doing that is loving everyone, and showing God’s love to the world. I’d like to do this in every part of my life, and I think the next three years will allow me to live this out in my own unique way, learning the skills and information needed to create things that help people. “Whatever you value, be committed to it and let nothing distract you from this goal. The uncommitted life, like Plato’s unexamined life, is not worth living” (Father Hesburg Movie - Moreau First Year Experience Week 2). Even though it might be a lot of work the next few years, I genuinely strive to live a life well-lived, and I think there are a lot of things in the next few years that I can do to help move forward in that direction. https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=10159379-7eca-4549-8581-ab9500c9ecd9