Facing Adversity

	I feel that my experiences at Notre Dame thus far this semester have taught me a lot about how I deal with adversity and how I challenge myself to be a strong and successful leader. Coming to college, I encountered a host of new experiences. I was in a new place far from home with people I did not know. I had always considered myself to be an outgoing person, but this took my extroversion to a new level. I have also learned to allow myself to fail.

	In high school, I had always been the best at everything I tried. I played for the state runner up basketball team; I was a national merit scholar; I was class president. Until I got to Notre Dame, I didn’t realize what it was like to not be the best. At first, I found myself fairly frustrated with this, but then I realized that I didn’t have to be the best. Everybody has different skills and all I need is to be the best version of myself that I can be. In Julia Hogan’s article, she explains the danger of setting high expectations for ourselves: “If we don’t meet those expectations, we feel like the exact opposite — that we aren’t good enough.” (“Why Letting Go of Expectations is a Freeing Habit” by Julia Hogan Moreau FYE Week 9) I feel that I enjoyed my time at Notre Dame much more when I shifted my focus to enjoying that time, instead of stressing about my level of success.

	Another aspect of myself that has grown since I arrived at Notre Dame is my ability to encounter alternative viewpoints. As a political science major and the Freshman Representative of College Republicans, I obviously have strong viewpoints. However, I have encountered many people who do not share my viewpoint, and have become close friends with many of them. Back home, I never encountered anyone who thought differently from me because I lived in a fairly homogenous community, we were all from the area, and our family roots went way back. I found that when I had meaningful conversations with people different from myself, I felt my respect for their position grow, and I could tell that their respect for my opinions grew as well. Father Jenkins said, in his speech to the Wesley Theological Seminary, “To stand apart, proclaim my position, and refuse to talk except to judge does not reduce hatred or promote love.” (“Wesley Theological Seminary Commencement” by Fr. John I. Jenkins Moreau FYE Week 10) I have tried to embrace this outlook whenever I encounter people who are different than myself.

	Another thing that I encountered during my time at was trying to discover how I fit into the community around me. It was hard at first to figure out who my close friends were going to be and who I would be friends with but not spend much time with and who I wouldn’t hang out with that much. I just decided to do as much as I could with as many people as possible, and I found that my community developed around me. I have found my hall to be an exceptional group of men, I enjoy spending time with all of them and am getting to know more and more guys in the hall every day. I have also found plenty of ways for me to be a leader and a valued member of the hall community. I enjoy being the person who people ask for help or for advice when they need it. I really want to be the person who everyone wants to be around, because I lift them up and make them feel better about themselves and the world around them through spending time with me. I think the thing I didn’t realize coming to Notre Dame was that I couldn’t create a community around myself, I needed to allow the community to develop and find my place inside it. Parker J. Palmer had a quote that I feel summed this concept up very well, “Community is not a goal to be achieved, but a gift to be received.” (“Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community” by Parker J. Palmer Moreau FYE Week 11) I am very glad that I was able to have the experience of fitting into a new community because it definitely helped me grow as a person.
	One of my favorite aspects of Notre Dame is the opportunity to focus on God. I wasn’t extremely concerned with having access to religion in college, but I am so glad that I chose Notre Dame because I have found God to be the best outlet for my stress and troubles. Whenever I have faced a problem or had a big test coming up, I tried all different ways to cope with that issue; however, I found that turning to God helped me feel the most fulfilled and best prepared to cope with my problems. I really never turned to God outside of Church back home. I didn’t pray regularly or think of God’s plan that often. However, ever since I have increased my focus on God, I have felt more at peace and more comfortable with my place in the world. In the Screwtape letters, the demon mentions that “In his efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks.” (“The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis Moreau FYE Week 12) This emphasizes to me that when turn to God in our struggles, we have an even greater opportunity to know him better. It is easy to pray to God and hope in him whenever things are going well. But, if we can continue to keep our eyes on his face through hard times, we will get through those times more easily and we will grow closer to God through our sufferings. 

	I feel that over the past semester, I have learned so much about myself, how to respond to adversity, and how I fit as a member of the larger Notre Dame Community.