Moreau Integration 3
March 04, 2022


	Life is complicated, it's a learning process and just like many things in life, some people get the hang of it really easily and others may struggle or have trouble finding a comfortable place in it. Despite how well you face life and the obstacles that are partnered with it that often appear in the most unexpected of places, the most important thing to remember is that all life is a good life depending on the way that you look at it.  by no means had his entire life figured out and he would often stop at the obstacles and struggle to find a way to move past them but he understood this. He understood that his life was a life well lived despite the various factors and occurrences that could have made him think otherwise and I believe that we can all agree he had a great life. For it was the interactions of his life that he would often say are the most meaningful moments and the ones that we should narrow our focus on like being able to make another person smile, laughing uncontrollably with a close friend, or maintaining meaningful relationships. By taking a moment to step back and reflect on Luis’s life, we can learn about what made his life so great and take a thing or two away from this to incorporate into our own lives to live like him. 
Luis was a person who lived for meaningful conversations and shared experiences with others around him, for it was these things that he said would stay with him even if he lost everything tangible in life. If you asked him what he would enjoy most about being a place such as Disneyland or the beach, he would not answer “the drop of the roller coaster” or “swimming through the ocean” instead he would say, how him and his friend could not stop laughing after telling each other to jokes to stay entertained in the line or the conversation that he had with the man about his prized boat. It is these small yet memorable moments that Luis looked forward to and which he wished more people would get excited about. Nowadays, it is easy to lose ourselves in the insignificant parts of our lives such as technology and realize the beauty of real life interactions. Luis would often state how much he agreed that technology caused people to “feel as though we are standing next to a huge canvas that’s noisy and crowded, changing with every microsecond” ( Moreau, Week 1). We should take Luis’s wish into account of our own lives and realize how short life is and how the key to living it well isn’t to shove our faces into our phones but rather to put the phone down and see how memorable it can be to put ourselves back into the real world. 
As mentioned previously, although Luis would often say he had a great life, he would also acknowledge the fact that throughout his life there was a great deal of struggle. Struggle and obstacles are inevitable parts of life that we should learn to tackle head on and embrace rather than stray away from them. In many of the conversations that people would have with Luis about struggles or issues that they were encountering in their lives, he would often say “you need to go through the worst to get to the best.” For he was a firm believer that struggle was necessary in order to grow as a person and we know that he grew greatly from combating his struggle and using it as motivation. We also know how much Luis valued helping others and he lived by the philosophy that we have a moral obligation to help others around us and better their lives for that in turn will better ours. Father Hesburgh once stated “there are a lot of mountains yet to be climbed to overcome human ignorance, human prejudice, and at times, human stupidity’ (Moreau, Week 2). Luis thought about this quote a lot and what exactly Father Hesburgh meant by this, to which he came to the conclusion that he was referring to the struggle that many people around the world and around us face and this is due to many people’s ignorance or not realizing that they can have a substantial impact on another person’s life if they decided to help them. So let’s learn from this quote and from Luis and make the change in our lives to dedicate ourselves to helping people so that we may also move towards a well lived life. 
As we reflect on Luis’s life this must also make us think about how important it is for us to appreciate our lives such as he did. Luis did many things throughout his day such as playing the daily Wordle or making sure to give his dog a hug before walking out of the door. However, there is one thing that he did every morning that greatly helped him throughout the day and the struggle and that was to wake up and go to sleep every day by saying thank you to God and thinking about how fortunate he was to live the life he did. As appreciative as he was however, he would also think about the dark parts of his life and how they gave meaning to the good ones. Luis would often say that “in facing the darkest realities of life that we find light in them” (Moreau, Week 3). In many of the conversations that he had with people, he would always encourage them to talk about their darkness and any negative events occurring in their lives. He is remembered by his ability to help others overcome their darkness and by facing his own in order to give light to the other aspects of life. 
Luis is also remembered by his work ethic and his ambition which led him to where he was and contributed to his many accomplishments throughout his life. Luis would often say that it doesn’t matter what you do in life, so long as you do it with all your heart and give one hundred percent of yourself to it. Luis was extremely hard working and did everything in life with 100 percent of his effort and it can be seen by his accomplishments how important that was to achieving them. This would also be an immense contribution to his life as he believed that if a person “actively engaged in the process, takes ownership, and utilized the tools at their disposal they will reap the benefits and establish a satisfying life” (Moreau, Week 4). Another important part of Luis’s life that he will be remembered for is his ability to accept his weakness and look for ways in which he can improve it. Luis would do this by reaching out to those in his life that he looked up to and would have honest conversations with them about himself and his weakness and use the advice given to him by applying it in all areas of life. One issue that Luis faced in his life but that he would often work hard to overcome was accepting himself in certain areas of his life and realizing how important it was for him to talk about his issues of acceptance. Luis often would say that “having conversations about topics that while difficult at times, will be beneficial and pivotal to our growth in life” ( Moreau, Week 5). 
Finally, Luis’s life was far from perfect but he did think a lot about what everything meant and who he was. It is important for us to think about who we are in this life and by realizing this build off on that to continue to make ourselves beneficial for the world and make ourselves happy so that we may experience a life well lived. Luis will be remembered by his deep thoughts about life and where he stood in all of it. Luis did struggle at one point in finding this answer as he would often go deep into introspection but in the wrong way. Introspection can cloud our self-perceptions and unleash a host of unintended consequences if performed incorrectly but by thinking about our life from the right perspective and asking the right questions we can dive deeper into who we are (Moreau, Week 6).. Luis asked himself a lot about who he was and not what he wanted to become, but as soon as he came to this realization he dedicated himself to his passions such as education amongst the youth and studying pre-med for he realized that he was a person who wanted to help others. He also realized that by helping others he would be able to continue to form meaningful relationships and have those interactions which he knew were important in life and contributed to his overall happiness. Pope Francis once stated, “We all need each other, none of us is an island, an autonomous and independent “I”, separated from the other, we can only build the future by standing together and including everyone” (Moreau, Week 7). Luis was still figuring out his life but he understood the important parts of what made his life great and what he had to do to keep growing this life well. He will be remembered by the interactions and special moments he had with others, his urge to help others and stand united,  and his love for himself and wanting to grow.