Last semester, I took my honors senior seminar – a class where a handful of seniors in the honors program met every week with the honors director to discuss our educational experiences, hopes, dreams, regrets, mistakes, and lives. Though this class was during the dreaded 8 A.M. time slot and only worth 1 credit, I got more out of it than I did in some of the more rigorous college courses I'd been taking. Our final assignment was to come to class with a presentation on a few key things: a reflection on our education (the good and the bad), an attempt at describing what constitutes a meaningful life, and a reflection of who we are and who we want to be.

While most people chose to present PowerPoints depicting their lives and their dreams, I chose instead to write a speech, one which I no doubt articulated and read to the class with shaky tremors dispersed throughout, as I am far more eloquent on paper than in person. It ended up being one of my favorite assignments ever, as it gave me the freedom to really think about everything that school and life had meant to me so far, and write down my thoughts and plans on paper so as to solidify them and get them out there once and for all.

For my last article, I wanted to share some of that speech, as I graduate college in the next few weeks and prepare for the next, far more unpredictable chapter of my life: post-grad. While I left out most of my notes on my education, the rest is largely unchanged from my thoughts in the fall –

I don’t think I’ve really considered what it means to live a meaningful life, not until recently actually, right before this class began. Recently, I experienced profound joy unlike any I'd ever known before; I spent time with people who managed to find meaning in simple things that a lot of us so often overlook, and to me, that was the most important thing of all. A meaningful life is not one lived by the book, or lived only to meet your parent’s expectations, or someone else’s. And while it is certainly meaningful to give of oneself and pursue actions that are larger than oneself, I don’t think it’s fair to designate one path toward living a meaningful life when humans are so very different from one another. The clothes we wear are certainly not one size fits all, so what makes anyone think that our path to meaning would be? I’m still trying to figure out how to find meaning in my life, so I’ll have to get back to you on that, but my overarching opinion is one of subjectivism – that meaning is not something we can all achieve by completing X and exhibiting Y, but something that we must find within ourselves as we go along our journey.

But, the main part of this speech revolves around who I am and who I strive to be. I’ve always done the right thing. No matter what age, or what situation, I was that goody two shoes kid who actually read the summer reading book (and secretly liked it). I was the one who helped out teachers when other kids played basketball in the gym. I went to church even though I couldn’t stand the priest. I did my homework on time and always received good grades. I colored in the lines, and I wore my skirt 2 inches above the knee (mostly). I took AP classes even though half of them were awful science lectures that were way above my head. I stayed away from drugs and I was accepted into good colleges. I chose a college that made sense for my family economically, and I chose a major that, while not business or engineering like my dad had hoped, was at least better than English or History, my two favorite subjects in high school. I got a job at school, I got a job at home. I joined clubs, I rose to leadership roles within my favorite activities, and I made good, wholesome friends.

On paper, everything I’ve done seems good. Seems right. But what I’m beginning to realize is that it’s not important to do the right thing. What’s important is that you’re doing the right thing…for you.

When I studied abroad, I didn’t settle for just any old option. I filled out a petition so that I could attend the school that I felt fit me best. And when I arrived at that school, all alone, while the American friends I lived with were off at a different school, I joined clubs and went to meetings. Completely alone. And then I went on trips with these clubs. Alone. Knowing nobody. Being the only American amongst Irish kids who’d known each other for years. Because to me, it felt right. Despite the fear, the anxiety, and the doubts.

And you know what? I survived. Heck, I thrived. I met some of the greatest people I’ll ever meet, and it felt like I was being let in on a little secret – walking amongst the Irish like I was one of them, despite only knowing them for two months, and being new to everything that they had long known to be familiar.

And then, this summer, I went on another adventure – this time to Iowa, to work with kids and adults with special needs. Why? To hell if I know. Something in me just wanted to. Just felt that it was the right thing for me to do. And so, again, I went, knowing only one person. And again, I came home a better person than before, with more foreign friends than most people will have in a lifetime and more blessings than my mind can fathom, even to this day.

I did these things not because they were the right thing to do by the standards of my parents, my teachers, my peers, or my friends, but because they felt right to me.

And in the spirit of breaking with what’s right by society’s standards and doing what I feel is right for me, I will not be seeking full-time employment after I graduate college. Instead, I am seeking opportunities. The opportunity to live in a new place and experience a different culture, while using my gifts to help bring out the best in others. If my pipe dream becomes my reality, and I fully intend to make it so, this time next year it won’t matter who the president of the United States is, because I won’t be living here.

I’ll be elsewhere – working some job not for the sake of making money but for the sake of continuing to explore and learn in what I think will be my favorite classroom yet: the world.

*(Side note: my pipe dream is becoming a reality. I will be living in a different country this November, a year from the time I originally wrote this.)* :)