Untitled document Moreau Capstone Nhat 24 April 2022 Revealment during the Storm “Now that I am in college, surely I know everything about myself.” I couldn’t be more wrong. As this semester is getting closer to the end, I realize that I am so lucky to be in three of my six classes. These happen to be God in the Good Life, Moreau and surprisingly my Greek Literature Seminar. I had a difficult semester and found myself learning so much information in a short amount of time. I didn’t realize that with learning new information about the science and world that I would also learn so much about myself. In GGL, I learned about what philosophy I agree with and discussed hot topics with my peers and I really feel like I discovered myself and became comfortable in what I believe in. In moreau, we talked about topics and read articles that made me think and almost took a break from studying and school. The wildcard was my Greek literature class. We read a bunch of Greek stories and plays and often related it to modern day. Between these three classes, I learned a lot about myself and how to live a good life, while Moreau was the perfect baseline and start. The first week we talked about practicing self-reflection. I feel like this often goes undone, though it is highly beneficial. I tried to sit in silence at least once a day and not think about school. I often over think about school and push people and things away. This gave me time to myself and helped me focus on my life, and not just my grades. The important thing I learned from the text was really just to slow down and take a breath. Things come super quick and it may become overbearing, but I learned to just live in the moment, and just relax. We moved into our inspiration and who we look up to. I had an interesting revelation during this week. I knew that I always looked up to my dad but I never really knew why. I feel like this week I found this out. My dad has always made me super happy and everywhere he goes, he makes everyone happy as well. He is such a good father and I think I aspire to be like him. He works so hard in his work but always makes time for family which I hope to be like when I grow up. I don’t want to get caught up in my work where I lose track of what is important and I feel like my dad has done a great job of this. During “Exploring a Life Well-Lived” I discovered what I want to do with my life career wise. I know that I always wanted to go into medicine because I liked helping people and I felt like I could make a direct difference in that field. I was able to take a week to think about what level of medicine I wanted to go into and what would be the best fit for me. I came to the realization that I am going to work hard to do the best I can in school and see where my interests take me. I still don’t know what I am good at or what I want to do but I believe that will come with time. Discerning a life well lived was an interesting week. I talked to my mom about what I am and what she sees in me and my future. It was eye opening to get an outside opinion on my life and where it is expected to go. It was hard to hear certain things but on the other hand, it was almost relieving to hear some as well. Although I probably won’t do it again because I won’t have a reason to do it, I am glad that I did it once in my life and it gave me some closure. Week 6 I reflected on the obstacles in my life and what may be getting in my way of achieving a good life. I found out that most of my obstacles that I am dealing with right now are in my head and I just need to mentally conquer them. This could be due to imposter syndrome that I have been feeling while attending Notre Dame, but the longer I am here the more I feel like I fit in and belong. This continued into relationships and what makes an important relationship. I realize that I can only succeed as much as the people around me push me to succeed. This is why I try to surround myself with good people that have a clear morality. I am so lucky to be at Notre Dame where a large percentage of the population are good, honest people that make relationships and friends. Suffering is always something that will be present in life. I feel like it is something that makes us truly human. For this reason, I think that suffering is required in a good life as weird as that sounds. Suffering allows us to grow and become stronger, and some of the time, learning from our mistakes. We shouldn’t be absolutely distraught with our sufferings but it is ok to be sad and grieve. We can always bounce back and we can’t enjoy the pleasures and highs of life without sometimes being a little sad. In the midst of a culture change in society, people are becoming more comfortable being themselves, in terms of sexuality, gender, etc. In a lot of places, people will become angry and heavily hate people that identify as such due to their own background, religion or politics. In a good life, I think that it is necessary that we are allies and support someone in what they believe. I think that today people are so caught up that we have free speech that we forget to just be a nice and good person. It is ok to maybe disagree, but not to totally hate on someone that they can’t control or their own opinion. Week 11 was scary for me, as am I sure it was for everyone. We talked about the echo chamber written about by Paul Blashco who is also my GGL teacher. This scares me because I don’t want to be in an echo chamber and not know it. Who knows how many differing opinions there are and other options to problems that are initially stated? I try to expand my knowledge in the subject by asking questions but because of where I am, I am ignorant to some opinions. I hope to study abroad one semester and gain an opinion outside of the United States. With all of this growth, I learned that I have to have confidence in what I believe in. We have to have courage to do the right thing, whatever you think that is. This goes back to social conformity and having the courage to split from the crowd. It is super easy to just try and blind into the crowd. It takes a lot of courage to speak out against what is wrong. Especially for me, I feel like I have a responsibility to speak out against injustice and the marginalized. The mission statement project was an interesting way to finish out the semester. I don’t think it was the most helpful assignment; it was a little cliche. I feel like we are not old enough to say what our mission statement is and we are still planning out our lives. I think it was good planning and optimistic. I guess we did grow in this course but I think it would’ve been cool if we had a mission statement before the semester and then after the semester and see how it has changed. Overall, I have a better understanding of what a good life looks like and how I will work towards it. I feel like I still have a long way to go but now I have something to strive for. Moreau has been so helpful in my transition into college and has given me a better understanding of who I am and what I believe in.