Capstone Integration 

Moreau First-Year Experience

How to Live a Life
My mission is to live my life following the values I hold dearest, such as humility, dedication, and a quest for knowledge. As an agnostic one of my distinct goals is to explore all religious traditions and pull from the common values that can be applied to my own life. To do this I believe that it is essential to accept everyone as equal human beings and accept the fact that everyone’s experience has value, while also supporting those in need of help. My mission is to do what I love, committing 100% to whatever it is, and doing it to the best of my ability. I make it my mission to embrace the power of opportunity, refusing to pass up every situation that presents a unique opportunity and constantly challenging myself. I believe that To live my life the way I want to, ultimately I need to be truly honest with myself and reflect on what I have done and what I want to do in the future with an open mind.
To live by the values I hold dearest, I want to continue to be true to myself and part of that is being consistent with what I do well. I had a conversation with my that Dad pointed out to me that I had an off-brand form of resilience, an unwillingness to give up despite my being hard on myself for failure (Discernment Conversation Activity - Moreau FYE Week 5). This is something I need to continue to do as my classes and major get more difficult in order to stay true to myself. Humility is also a huge part of this part of my mission. I believe that the Pope was correct in saying:  "Power is like drinking gin on an empty stomach." You feel dizzy, you get drunk, you lose your balance, and you will end up hurting yourself and those around you if you don’t connect your power with humility and tenderness. (Why the future worth building includes everyone by Pope Francis - Moreau FYE Week 7). I think to maintain my friendships and relationships with those around me at Notre Dame, I need to act humbly and be able to admit when I am wrong. To fulfill my commitment to a quest for knowledge I also have to look for wisdom, looking to understand multiple perspectives instead of just responding to one I disagree with. “Instead of hating the other side, instead of hating a random person who says they're Republican or says they're Democrat, they would say, hmm, is this a neighbor that I can convince to move in my direction?” (Passion isn’t enough, Hidden Brain Podcast - Moreau FYE Week 11). This quote from the hidden brian podcast encapsulates the way I want to think about most issues or disagreements, and how I will wisely acquire knowledge. I want to convince people in group projects of my point of view and be open-minded for them to convince me, as I have been trying to do in all my group projects.
While these values may be important, they mean nothing if I do not accept everyone as equal human beings with valuable experiences. This view on segregation within schools is a great example: “The whiter our schools and neighborhoods are, the more likely they are to be seen as “good.” The implicit message is that there is no inherent value in the presence or perspectives of people of Color.” (Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism, Dr. Robin DiAngelo - Moreau FYE Week 10). I believe this point of view is not only misguided but moronic. I think that the diverse community at Notre Dame shows that we need to accept people of all backgrounds as equals with valued experiences. I refuse to treat people as though they are nothing. “As an African-American man, I have had the experience of being pulled over by a police officer, with no apparent or expressed reason for the stop.” ('I am George Floyd. Except, I can breathe. And I can do something, by Dean Marcus Cole - Moreau FYE Week 12). Having experienced racial discrimination to a much smaller extent, I know the value of accompanying people when they are suffering and make it my mission to continue to do so. “They accompanied me – especially the kids – as they taught me Spanish, and as they helped me understand the complexities of their lives and the possibilities for finding some paths forward, which we began to work on together. ” - (Teaching Accompaniment: A Learning Journey Together by Steve Reifenberg - Moreau FYE Week 9). I have a friend who suffers from some pretty heavy mental health issues, but we just sit and talk about football or basketball, and together that helps us both. This experience has made me realize why it is an important part of my mission to accept everyone as equal human beings and accompany those in times of suffering.
I want to commit to whatever I do and do it to the best of my ability, be it college classes, work, or spending time with my family. I have always believed that if you are doing something you love it stops feeling like work: “It’s really hard to motivate yourself to do well if you’re just not interested in that subject matter or activity, or maybe your skill is lacking so it gets frustrating quickly.” (Navigating Your Career Journey by Notre Dame Career Development - Moreau FYE Week 4). I find it easier to commit 100% of my time and effort to classes in Computer Science right now for this very reason as I feel as though I am doing something that interests me. My mission is to continue to live this way and not put in less effort than necessary for things that I love.
I believe that at Notre Dame, there is always an opportunity to explore something you are interested in and that to live my mission I need to take advantage of this fact.  Just because one door closes doesn’t mean there are still a bunch of ones still not open. When challenged with adversity I just feel like it’s important to be resilient and take advantage of every opportunity presented to you, even if it’s not the one you were necessarily expecting. (2021 Domer Dozen Honoree: Michael Hillmer ’17 - Moreau FYE Week 2). There is no opportunity that is without its challenges but to be aware of the opportunities available to me and be brave enough to take them will mean that I am living my mission during my time at Notre Dame.
The final part of my mission is something that I feel is more personal to me rather than to those around me, reflection. To me reflection means introspecting in the correct way: “Buddhist scholar Tarthang Tulku uses an apt analogy: when we introspect, our response is similar to a hungry cat watching mice. We eagerly pounce on whatever “insights” we find without questioning their validity or value.” - (The right way to be introspective by Tasha Eurich - Moreau FYE Week 6 ). After a physics exam in which I did badly, I found myself lacking motivation and blaming myself for the bad score rather than looking to see how I could improve. I had to learn how to reflect for it to be beneficial to myself and be honest with where I was concerning my level of physics. Another aspect of reflection I commit myself to is to take a pause. At Notre Dame especially, the workload is intense, classes are hard and the pace seems to accelerate every week. Sometimes a pause helps to put things into perspective: “That’s the reason American football players prefer to go into a huddle rather than just race toward the line of scrimmage.” (Why we need to slow down our lives by Pico Iyer - Moreau FYE Week 1). I feel like pausing and taking a step back also helps us see what the photo is beginning to look like in the jigsaw that is our lives. “Remember your death.” The concept is to intentionally think about your own death every day, as a means of appreciating the present and focusing on the future. It can seem radical in an era in which death — until very recently — has become easy to ignore. (NYT- Meet the Nun Who Wants You to Remember You Will Die by Ruth Graham - Moreau FYE Week 3). I believe that sometimes we find ourselves busy and engrossed in what we are doing and we sometimes fail to see the bigger picture. I want to be able to be honest with myself by looking at my mortality and not hanging on to relationships or time spent pursuing something that didn’t work. 
In order to live my mission statement, I need to be cognizant of the way I am living my life. I need to actively take steps in order to follow these rules I have laid out for myself, which granted will not be easy. I am also aware that at my age these values are not completely fixed, instead, I look at them as a solid foundation for the person I want to become. Still, I want to remain open to the idea that my personal mission statement could develop with time and not be so rigid in the way I am living that I cannot adapt to these changes.