Professor Taylor
Moreau
15 October 2021
Glad I’m Still Growing 
      I wanted to have everything figured out by the start of college, to understand myself fully and simply develop the person I was to help the people I cared for.  However, although my core beliefs have not switched while in college I have come to realize that they have shifted and will continue to move throughout my life as I grow.  Keeping an open mind with this course has enabled me to really inspect where my values stand and how I can act to improve them.  My experiences at Notre Dame, especially those I’ve had with other people and with my own limitations have affirmed my beliefs.  I feel more confident than ever to say that finding healthy emotional relationships is essential to satisfying lifestyle.  I know that although everybody is different, we are united in our humanity, and the more we know about ourselves, the good and the bad, the better we will be able to achieve our goals. During my time in this radically new and brilliant school, I have seen my beliefs that human connection is essential to fulfillment, everybody is similar in their differences, and self-knowledge is the engine to true success grow along with me. 
      First, I believe that it is essential to connect with others to live happily, but I have learned that vulnerability is the best way to get close and not every relationship is healthy.  I have always been a very social, extroverted person.  I valued my relationships with my good high school friends and with my family, yet these relationships matured over many years and came very naturally.  When I arrived at Notre Dame,  I knew I needed to find people to connect with, but I was at a loss at how to form these relationships as an adult.  I decided to employ the bold, confident vulnerability I had learned from Dr. Brene Brown in order to connect with people.  In a comment about her findings from experimentation on vulnerability, Dr Brown says, “People that have a strong sense of love and belonging believe that they are worthy of love and belonging . . . [and people that had this strong sense of belonging] had the courage to be imperfect. . . They fully embraced vulnerability, they believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful” (“The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown - Moreau FYE Week One https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0)
This statement she made about how people found a sense of belonging and true happiness by engaging in a vulnerable way with other people reveals the true richness of human interaction.  Everybody derives a huge sense of fulfillment from having good relationships, and at Notre Dame I’ve been quick to open up to people to get an honest connection.  I’ve told people about things I love and things that challenge me, and when they open up right back I’ve been able to have some of the best conversations of my life.  One night in particular stands out, when my ordinarily quiet roommate talked to me about their concerns about dating after I had admitted I struggled with finding a more committed relationship.  Hence, I’ve been able to find some of the best connections of my life by not being afraid of who I am and what my flaws are.  I’ve experienced reaffirming feelings of belonging after trying to be more open.  However, vulnerability wasn’t the only thing I learned about here either.  Unfortunately I had a rather difficult relationship with a very kind person who had severe communication issues.  Before in my life I hadn’t met somebody that I had wanted to get closer to but regretted it when I did.  I believe it’s important to recognize that “A good, healthy friendship is one where two people are mutually growing and on a path toward becoming better people, but every so often we find ourselves making an effort with a person we probably shouldn’t” (“5 signs your in a toxic friendship” by Olivia T Taylor - Moreau FYE Week 4 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28222/modules/items/105932). I thought if I just interacted in an honest way with this person that the issues would work themselves out, but over time the problems only grew bigger and I got more stressed about saving the friendship.  Neither of us were growing together, we seemed to weight each other down and I realized that the relationship was making both me and the other person unhappy because it wasn’t working, and I decided that it would be better for both of us just to have some space.  Exactly like the quote, I was putting too much energy into a relationship that was not going to succeed.  Before coming to Notre Dame I had never experienced anything like that, and I assumed that I could work past other peoples issues if I put in enough effort.  However I allowed my flawed expectations to change rather than hurt myself and somebody else.  My experiences both pleasant and unpleasant with the people of this campus, have only reinforced my belief that your connections with other people are of the utmost importance for your sense of safety and comfort in any setting.  I’m so glad that I was able to open up to more people and understand when a relationship is hurting people it’s neither a bad idea nor morally objectionable to disentangle oneself.
      I believe one of the reasons relationships are so fulfilling is because I believe people are more similar as humans than they are different.  My concept of the beauty of diversity has greatly expanded after seeing so many different yet equally motivated people around me.  Previously I thought I went to a pretty diverse high school, because there were people born in different countries and some could even speak a different language than me.  While this was a good experience, it could not prepare me to the thrill of Notre Dame’s diverse student body.  Almost each and every person is not afraid to be themselves and tell their story in a way the kids at my high school had not quite yet gained the confidence to do.  Everybody here has a different opinion, a different perspective, whether it’s the place they grew up or the environment they were raised in or what their core values are.  Talking to my highly conservative roommate and my highly liberal hallmate at the same time about what they want for America late at night gives me inspiration about what we can accomplish together even if we disagree on what methods to use.  Everytime I hear a new, full perspective it reminds me of the words of Chimamanda Adichie: “the consequence of the single story is . . . it emphasizes how we are different, rather than how we are similar” (“The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie - FYE week 7 https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/up-next).  Before I came to Notre Dame, most people other than my closest friends were afraid to tell me more than a single story about themselves, and consequently, I appreciated the diversity of people around me without getting the full picture.  Here I’ve been awed at how many different people from different places can be so similar in their drive for a better life, and a better world.  It’s a thrill to see how similar we all are and appreciate the likenesses that supersede our fascinatingly different backgrounds.  At Notre Dame I shifted from trying to know how people are different from me to appreciate their differences to seeing how their differences only prove our overwhelming similarities.  
       One of ay I am similar to many people here is that I believe the more we know about ourselves in totality, good and bad, the more powerful we become.  Before coming to Notre Dame I only wanted to focus on growing the parts of myself I admired and I didn’t know how to acknowledge my weaknesses or even strengths that didn’t fit my own self-concept.  I was very shocked when we took the personality strengths test and my highest skill was spirituality, because I never thought of my strong convictions of my purpose in life as a faith or a hope I had.  I had constrained spirituality to organized religion and ignored how to use my strong moral convictions to reinforce my work ethic and drive myself forward to my goal.  I didn’t think of strong spirituality as something I could use and grow and explore in myself even though it made sense and was something I had always known in the back of my mind.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve hit some times where it was difficult to find purpose for it, and in these moments of weakness I look to my convictions about how I need to share my talents with the world to improve it to keep going.  Whenever I doubt myself I remind myself that I have power within just by my human spirit.  A second thing I’ve been able to come to terms with at Notre Dame is that my childhood wasn’t perfect.  When writing my “Where I Come From” poem, I wanted everything to be happy and nostalgic, but I realized that there were things that were painful to remember even though the majority of my childhood was spectacular.  Instead of ignoring the bad, I started to examine how those experiences affected me.  My mom’s good intentioned emotional manipulation has really made me cautious about how connected I become with people, and my experiences in high school as a transition from homeschooling has taught me that I am a multifaceted person even though I often caved to peer pressure to change my behavior.  But knowing these things is way better than letting them affect me insidious and hidden because I cannot confront them.  Notre Dame has given me the space from my home to see that although my childhood was far from perfect, I am a truly blessed person for being able to turn all the good to my advantage.  Acknowledging my strengths and weaknesses will teach me how to take care of myself on a very personal level and accomplish my goals. 
    All togehter, I believe Notre Dame has allowed me to give myself the grace to grow as a person.  I have learned how to use vulnerability to connect with others and how to allow myself to leave toxic relationships.  I have met and heard full stories from multitudes of students that remind me of humanity’s overwhelming commonality.  And finally I have studied more than just my favorite and idolized strengths to gain motivation, and now understand the power of knowing my weaknesses.  All of these things speak of change within me, but all of these changing facets of my understanding of myself and the people around me are the result of a new environment.  I do not need to completely find myself like I did in high school, I am confident in my flexible identity because I have so much evidence around me on campus that people with different backgrounds and personalities are just the same as I am.  I can accept myself because I seek to do the right thing in how I interact with other people, and I accept everybody around me.  I believe I will continue to change at Notre Dame, because I am constantly adding new beliefs that enrich and improve the old beliefs.  I am so excited to be in such a diversely similar community in which I can find fulfilling friendships and explore myself to become the best version of myself.