Don’t Wait 
I have a quote-a-day calendar in my room, and one day about four or five weeks ago the quote said something like “don’t wait for the life you want, make what you want a reality today.” I tend to get caught up in the mindset of if I work really hard now then I can get a good job and have a perfect life when I get older. But this quote made me reconsider that perspective and I realized that kind of thinking was why I don’t prioritize my own health and happiness. So now I am trying to change that. I remember the week I was thinking about all of this stuff I worked out everyday, I was reading every night, and I would treat myself to coffee or whatever made me feel happy throughout the day. It was a good week and everyday I still remind myself that I have to choose to live the life I want since happiness is not guaranteed in the future and all I really have control over is how I feel today. 
	Of course, this week led into a week where I had a really heavy workload and I was really stressed about school and my future. This was week 9, and our QQC was responding to an article about letting go of expectations. The quote I used was “Instead of letting your life be ruled by the expectations of others or your own expectation that you have to be perfect, what if you just did your best?” (“Why Letting Go of Expectations is a Freeing Habit” by Julia Hogan - Moreau FYE Week Nine). I remember I really didn’t like this reading because it somewhat dismissed my entire belief system; but now looking back, I have an entirely different perspective. Once I realized that I am responsible for living in a way that brings me happiness, I began to apply that to school and I realized that I don’t need to have the same attitude toward college as I did toward highschool. High school was high stakes; I had high expectations for myself because I knew that I could achieve those expectations and because I needed to get into a good college. But now that I am here at Notre Dame, I don’t have those super high expectations because I know some things are going to be unachievable and that just graduating from here with decent grades is enough for me to get into a grad program and get a good job. So now I do believe in “just doing your best”, because now I know that my best is actually good enough. 
	This process of re-evaluating my priorities was also spurred by my family. The first week of November my grandma passed away. She lived with us and my parents took care of her for the last five years of her life. I wasn’t super close with her since she had dementia and was almost entirely deaf, but it was still really hard to watch my dad grieve the loss of his mother. She passed on a Saturday night and we came home that Sunday just for the day, and then we came back the next weekend for the funeral. The whole thing was really difficult for everyone and I tried to be as helpful as possible but there was nothing I could do to really make anyone feel better. The class discussion on the Monday after she passed was about brokenness and I remember that we wrote down what brokenness means to us, and the first thing that came to my head was seeing my dad break down in tears the day before. It is hard to be that close to brokenness and not be able to do anything to help. I am not really close with my dad or his side of the family, so seeing them in pain and not knowing how to help was difficult and it made me realize that I don’t want to be in that situation again. It made me realize how much I appreciate my relationships with my family and my friends, so now I am trying to open up more to the people in my life so they know how much I really care about them.  
	While this was happening with my family I was still thinking about expectations and school and my responsibility to myself, and I realized that I caused so much brokenness to myself due to my definition of success. Like I said, I had really high expectations for myself and I met those expectations, but now I have realized that success is less about being the best and more about feeling fulfilled. Now my definition of success is just fulfillment and I am trying to live every day in a way that makes me feel fulfilled, and I am doing everything I can to build a life that will help me feel even more fulfilled. 
 Week 10 was about brokenness and I remember our QQC was responding to an article about critical race theory. I really liked the article and the quote I chose was  “... the church has taught explicitly that sin and evil manifest themselves in social structures” (“Should Catholic Schools Teach Critical Race Theory?” by Christopher J. Devron, S.J. -  Moreau FYE Week Ten). I felt this concept really deeply as someone who pays attention to and cares alot about social justice and inequality. It is hard to know what to do with all the brokenness we encounter in the world, but having a framework of faith helps me understand that suffering has meaning and that my education and knowledge level comes with responsibility to do good. And since I realized the responsibility I have to myself to live a life I love, I see my responsibility to the world as an extension of that responsibility to myself since I know that I am responsible for not only creating the life I want, but I am also responsible for creating a world I want to live in. 
Further, the next QQC responded to C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, and the quote I chose was, “Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished and though questioning why he has been forsaken, still obeys” (“The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis - Moreau FYE Week Twelve). I love this quote because it reminds me that I am strong because I have seen so much ugliness in our world and I still have faith in God and his plan for humanity. I believe that everything is in His hands, but I also believe that he gives us all purpose and the responsibility to create a world we love. 
In these past few weeks I have realized my responsibility to build a life I love, to build a world I love, and do what really matters. Building a life I love means remembering that my life right now is not as high stakes as it seems. Building a world I love means paying attention and speaking out against injustice and  including others in the conversations since “Change is difficult but more possible when we see and hear multiple voices” (“Diversity Matters!” by Professor Agustin Fuentes - Moreau FYE Week Eleven). And lastly, doing what really matters means structuring my day-to-day life in a way that brings me fulfillment.