Dear Jonah,
Do not be afraid. It is I, your future self, who is four years older, jaded and hopefully wiser. In this letter, I wish to impart some wisdom that I have collected along the way in hopes of giving you some more excitement for what lies ahead, not to ruin the timeline but to help you.
As a freshman, you are hopelessly naive, ignorant even, but rightfully so. Lofty aspirations of a career in investment banking compel you to spend late nights crunching away at numbers and problem sets. The reality of corporate servitude appears to you in the guise of financial stability and achievement. You still think that your opinions in your Observer Opinion articles are important, meaningful and widely read. You take great care in crafting your articles and even share them on social media with friends and family. You still treat your relationships like you’re still in high school: you converse digitally primarily through emojis and snapchat. As an 18-year-old, you are full of hope and faith in humanity: you firmly believe that you are (and will be) a force for good. You think your voice as a student at Notre Dame can impact the outcomes of University policies and you care about community.
But as a freshman, this is the way things should be. You should, rightfully, be a fool. This sort of foolishness is what made Notre Dame seem to you, as an 18-year-old, a mystical and magical wonderland. And many of your peers have felt the same way.
Now, I no longer think that Notre Dame is the mystical and magical wonderland that it once appeared to be. Disillusionment with the world around me has extinguished that flame. I know my time at Notre Dame is coming to a close. There are friends and peers who repeat that their time at Notre Dame is and will be the best four years of their life. And to that, I cringe. I am thankful for my education, but I know that I am destined for so much more, that my future life will be so much more exciting and meaningful than these four years. To think that the best years of one’s life are the ones spent in constant drunken stupor, void of true responsibility and decision-making opportunities, is ridiculous.
Though many will tell you otherwise, your disillusionment is a good thing, in a way. They are scars from your battles in struggling to live with meaning. They are the notes from your internal conversations with yourself about death, God and the life afterwards. Above all, they are the clearest indication that you have realized, finally, that you are not satisfied with what the world offers. And in this regard, the disillusionment was worth it.
I know this will be hard for you to understand now. You have not yet asked yourself the right questions, had the necessary conversations or contemplated the higher ideas. But, the process is ongoing and it will eventually start creeping in subtly. It will work through the people around you and the unfortunate circumstances that will beset you. People will treat you poorly. You’ll shake your fist in protest against brick walls of cold indifference. There will be moments where you feel as if people’s gazes pass right through you. I recall moments where I questioned if we even spoke the same language. But these are all moments of recourse, to think hard and long about what really matters, to think about what is true, good and beautiful. And then act accordingly.
Responsibility is something that you don’t quite understand. Charity is unknown to you, yet. But during every day of these next four years, Christ will pass you by, offering you your cross to take up. After plenty of times rejecting that offer, you will eventually discover the wherewithal to take it up. You will understand that the Christian life is one marked not by superficial affectations and idyllic reverie but one of deep commitment to suffering and struggle. To be united to the truth of the world is to endure its most broken aspects, patiently but joyfully.
Like I said before, you won’t understand this when you read it now. But later, you will. And you then will realize that you are finally on your way to true joy and fulfillment.
Love,
Jonah T. Tran
Jonah Tran is a senior at Notre Dame studying finance and classics. He prides himself on sarcasm and never surrendering. You can file complaints to Jonah by email at jtran5@nd.edu.
