Intregration 2 David Lassen Moreau FYE 3 December 2021 The Lived Experience of Open-Mindedness In my first few months at Notre Dame, I have had the opportunity to be or refuse to be open minded. Whether that comes to academics, interacting with friends, or trying new things, I have found that I am often choosing between being open or close minded. In my time here, and hopefully in the future, I am looking to explore ways to expand my horizons. One way that I have tried to be more open-minded is by exploring different careers and majors. “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). While I believe that my parents have been very good about placing realistic expectations on me for my whole life, I feel that I have not set realistic expectations for myself. I am a very goal oriented person, so if I set out an objective for myself, I sometimes feel like a failure if I don't accomplish it. When I came to college, I was firm in my belief that I wanted to be a doctor. Since I was in my early years of high school, I developed a strong interest in medicine, so I did everything that I could to prepare myself for a career in that field. I volunteered at hospitals, shadowed doctors, and overloaded my schedule with science classes. While I still enjoy all of that and still have a strong interest in medicine, after coming to Notre Dame, I realized the sheer abundance of careers out there. Although I am still on a pre-med track, I keep telling https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/health-and-wellness/letting-go-of-expectations/?utm_source=fall_2021&utm_medium=class&utm_id=moreau https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/health-and-wellness/letting-go-of-expectations/?utm_source=fall_2021&utm_medium=class&utm_id=moreau myself that the most important thing is that I find a career that I am passionate about. If that career is medicine, great. If it isn’t medicine, that doesn’t mean I’m a failure. During my first semester of college, I’ve already met a ton of people who have completely changed their path and are so happy about it. So, in the future, I want to make sure that I am keeping my options open and reminding myself to be kind to myself. The most important thing is to be happy and passionate about what you are doing, not to fulfill goals that don’t fit with your mentality anymore. As well as trying to have a positive and open mind about my academic life here at Notre Dame, I have also tried to lead a life with love rather than hate. When discussing the power of hate in a commencement address, Fr. Jenkins notes “we seem not to see the danger. As Augustine wrote in his Confessions, ‘It is strange that we should not realize that no enemy could be more dangerous to us than the hatred with which we hate him.’” (“Wesley Theological Seminary Commencement” by Fr. John Jenkins - Moreau FYE Week Ten). The quote from St. Augustine that Fr. Jenkins spoke about in his commencement speech speaks to a principle that I have tried to align with as much as possible in the past few months. Before coming to Notre Dame, my best friend just started ignoring me one. We were never in a fight or anything, she just decided one day that she didn’t want to be friends anymore and stopped talking to me. Understandably, that caused a lot of pain for me and I was angry for a long time about that. I realized though, that the only person I was hurting by being angry was myself. Being angry wasn’t going to change my friend’s mind, it was only making me feel upset all the time. So, when I came to Notre Dame, I made a promise to myself that I would try to be kinder to myself and to not take everything so personally. I am glad that I went into college with a positive outlook, because the whole process of making new friends in https://president.nd.edu/homilies-writings-addresses/wesley-theological-seminary-commencement/ college can be challenging. You are trying to put your best self forward while also trying to find genuine friends, which isn’t easy. I have been lucky enough to find a good group of friends here fairly quickly, but I want to continue the philosophy of pouring out love rather than hate. While it not only makes others feel more comfortable around you, being loving helps me feel happier with myself. Obviously when coming to a new environment, such as college, you are going to be surrounded by new people with different experiences, which I think is a great opportunity to explore new avenues. In a lecture about the importance of diversity, Agustin Fuentes states that “exposure and access to different types of people, to different life experiences, to different ways of seeing the world offers insight and allows us to be in a position to think about change” (“Diversity Matters” by Agustin Fuentes - Moreau FYE Week Eleven). Coming to Notre Dame, I was very aware of the fact that this school would be far less diverse than I was used to. I went to a fairly diverse high school, and I was always so interested to hear about the different backgrounds and cultures that shaped my classmates’ viewpoints. A large number of the students here are white, catholic, upper-middle class families, which can really limit the perspectives that we are able to hear about. While I think it is vitally important that the University increases the amount of diversity in our community, I have definitely encountered people at college who had very different life experiences than I did, regardless of their race or gender. I know people now who grew up on farms, in big cities, in red states, in blue states, and so much more. Regardless of physical diversity, I have had to navigate interacting with people who are very different than I am. I think, no matter what, it is important to recognize that your experience is not the same one everyone else had. In the future, I really want to try and approach these interactions with love and https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=d14a0472-9c0e-44ea-bd39-53c67ee1d436 understanding. While I of course want to be welcoming to people of all races, genders, and the intersectionality of these things, I think it is also important for me to recognize that being understanding of people who didn’t grow up in diverse environments is also important. It’s impossible to have a loving community without being willing to help people grow. Lastly, I have tried to be open-minded about what my day to day life will look like in college. I have realized that I cannot always expect to be living a picture perfect life, which is why it is important to rely on people around you. In a satirical piece, C.S. Lewis’s characters discuss the human experience of these ups and downs: “As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now through are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which do us no good unless you make good use of it.” (“The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis - Moreau FYE Week Twelve). Even though this quote from the Screwtape letters is supposed to be lighthearted, I think it carries a very important message. Already in college, I’ve gone through periods where I’ve felt extremely happy and focused, but I’ve also had days where I haven’t. I also recognize that my friends and classmates have these types of days too. We can’t expect that every single day is going to be perfect, or that it is not normal to have bad days. In the future I want to make sure that I am being kind to myself when I have bad days and to remember that bad days make you appreciate the good days more. I think it is important to be vulnerable and open when you are having a bad day so that others understand that they are not alone. https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/23646/files/190607?module_item_id=107421 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/23646/files/190607?module_item_id=107421