Integration Two Schmidlkofer 1 Maria Finan First-Year Studies 12 October 2021 He was Obsessed, so I will not Be After a year’s quarantine, I was shocked to return to a daily community, first as a janitor at a veterinary clinic, and now as a student at a university. I encountered all of the social fears that I had before the quarantine, but I had been away from them for several months, and upon returning I experienced difficulty with knowing how to respond. At the veterinary clinic, I worried constantly about the quality of my work. Homework assignments have explicit steps, and mistakes do not directly harm anyone. If I did not scrub a kennel correctly, a patient might unnecessarily get sick. The patient’s owner might complain to the doctors, and it would be my fault. The past few months at Notre Dame have been similarly novel and afforded me similar liberties, testing my judgment. Important questions that I have asked this semester address the confrontation of dissonance. Within the past four weeks, in a text message conversation with a friend from high school, I questioned the exact manner of a grateful response for having a college education. Without disclosing too much of what is personal to him, my friend grew up in a low-income broken family and developed Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (“OCD”) during the start of high school. In this conversation, he had praised my high school academic efforts, an area with which he struggled, and I commented on equal access to college. Simply put, people work harder than me at low-wage jobs. We share something of an ironic joke, knowing that I often avoid leisure in comparing myself to the underpaid and overworked. He told me that he used to think constantly Schmidlkofer 2 about major global issues, and he developed compulsions to relieve the distress of this contemplation. In a text, he related that individuals cannot address such far-reaching problems if they cannot properly eat, socialize or complete their school work. Trust your personal needs. My friend called into question my standards for myself. While week 9 discussed personal standards specifically in social contexts, as exemplified in college students, I often relate my dissonance to personal standards which rest on the aforementioned downward comparisons. Frankly, most of such dissonance is evident in false or exaggerated personal standards. Counselor Julia Hogan suggests, “Instead of asking, ‘What should I do...What would my friend/parent/significant other expect me to do?’, ask yourself, ‘What do I want to do...What do I think is best?’ Trust yourself” (Week 9). Hogan’s language has a superficial tone, but she prompts a necessary daily reminder of self-trust. As seen in my friend’s notion of self-trust, the impact of personal standards is not restricted to the individual if such standards prevent the pursuit of goodness. The challenges of Notre Dame’s community have grown in importance as a result of my Notre Dame journey thus far. During the Moreau class discussion for week 10, we discussed issues of race and sexual orientation in the Notre Dame community. It is important to recognize the issues that groups of people face while also recognizing the dignity of the individuals involved. As Devron points out, the matter of race is neither a zero-sum game between the oppressive and oppressed nor an inconsequential excuse for complaint (Week 10b). In this view, my identity as white and heterosexual is not restricted to one of oppression. Instead, I am called to help those who are different from me, open dialogue, find common dignity, and work against the poor consequences they face as parts of their identities. Schmidlkofer 3 Being that race and sexuality have not had intense impacts on my personal life, I drew a more introspective insight from the focus of week 10 on troubled dialogue in Notre Dame’s community. I considered the troubled dialogues that I have with myself. In a commencement speech, Rev. John Jenkins says, “hatred often hides in self-righteous conviction — where it can be seen as driving the effort toward a noble goal…It can hide from our conscience by entangling itself in our most noble beliefs” (Week 10a). Rev. Jenkins uses examples of violence taken for the sake of the greater good. Differently, in consequence of what he describes, I often reduce my dignity by believing that my self-worth flows most fully from the work that I do. Investing effort to improve the world is a noble goal but not at the expense of human dignity. Take note: a person is more than a laborer. If I reduce my dignity, I will not attend properly to the dignity of others. How we can connect during conflicts was unqualified but is now more nuanced. Week 11 particularly addresses the conflict that arises among differing identities in the community, a conflict that relates to week 10 but which focuses more on resolution. In light of issues concerning identity within communities, there are the nuances of belonging to a community. For example, the individual is not lost, people do not need to submit to a leader, and not every relationship needs to be deeply intimate. Throughout this discourse, I still cannot reconcile the tension between self-interest and community—especially concerning connection—but an understanding of this tension requires nuance. As with the prior weeks, my consideration of this topic focused on inward reflection. Parker Palmer claims that “Community is that place where the person you least want to live with always lives...And when that person moves away, someone else arises immediately to take his or her place” (Week 11). He explains that this is because we identify the most unfavorable parts of ourselves in such people. It follows that self-critical individuals might identify more personally Schmidlkofer 4 unfavorable attributes in not only themselves but also other people. At the same time, those who hold little value for themselves might lack motivation for self-fulfillment and thus hold more value for fulfilling other people, the alternative being a wider lack of fulfillment. In light of this, the oversimplified Biblical response might be, “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” (Lk. 6:31) which implies both a positive self-image and positive treatment of others. Life and growth in hope were once ambiguous but now hold greater clarity. Rev. James King describes hope, writing “The contemplation of new ideas and needs beyond our comfort zones requires a sacrificial willingness to put at risk everything that we think we already know” (Week 12). While Rev. King qualifies this statement, describing hope as a continuous process for global citizens, I considered his statement in a simpler, more theological context. The term sacrificial recalls the example of sacrifice for everyone, the perfect sacrifice, Jesus’ crucifixion. In recalling this, sacrifice does not solely refer to giving up something arbitrary for something better yet still arbitrary. Instead, sacrifice recalls the giving of everything you have out of love, a giving that is only possible through and in God. Only God could give all of Himself, so when we try to give we need the gift of His grace. While I reflected on this quote theologically, I still lack faith, but I believe that such a reflection gives hope more nuanced meaning than terms like optimism or dream. In confronting the dissonance of personal standards, affirming dialogues at community and personal levels, elaborating connections during internal and external conflicts, and clarifying growth and life in hope, I have constructively responded to the uncertainty inherent in my time spent at Notre Dame. I will strive to continue this response. Schmidlkofer 5 Moreau References 1. (“Why Letting Go of Expectations is a Freeing Habi” by Julia Hogan - Moreau FYE Week Nine) https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/health-and-wellness/letting-go-of-expectations/?u tm_source=fall_2021&utm_medium=class&utm_id=moreau 2. (“Wesley Theological Seminary 2012 Commencement Address” by Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C. - Moreau FYE Week Ten A) https://president.nd.edu/homilies-writings-addresses/wesley-theological-seminary-comme ncement/ 3. (“Should Catholic Schools Teach Critical Race Theory?” by Christopher J. Devron, S.J. - Moreau FYE Week Ten B) https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/06/03/critical-race-theory-catholic-high-sch ools-black-lives-matter-240792 4. (“Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community” by Parker J. Palmer - Moreau FYE Week Eleven) http://couragerenewal.org/parker/writings/13-ways-of-looking-at-community/ 5. (“Holy Cross and Christian Education” by Rev. James B. King, C.S.C. - Moreau FYE Week Twelve) https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28298/files/186731/download?download_frd=1 6. New American Bible Revised Edition [NABRE]. Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2010. Online. Accessed at biblegateway.com.