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Living the Dream
If you ask David Lafontant how he’s doing, there’s a good chance you won’t get the usual “good” or “fine.”
You’ll get: “Living the dream.”
It’s a phrase David has been using since his freshman orientation at Florida State — the very same week he first found the Catholic Student Union.
During orientation, a speaker challenged students to approach their lives with gratitude and intention. One small challenge stuck with David: for one week, when someone asked how he was doing, instead of simply saying “good,” he should tell them he was “living the dream” and see how it changed the conversation.
It stuck. So did something else he discovered that week.
David stopped by the CSU table during freshman orientation and connected with a student who, like him, was from Miami. That encounter got him through the door, but what he found once he arrived surprised him.
“I kind of grew up in the, as a going through the motions, just went to Mass, but I didn’t really have my heart in it.”
Then he walked into his first Spirit Night.
“I was very surprised at how deeply involved everybody was in their faith.”
David had never really experienced a Catholic community before. He had gone to Mass and gone home. At CSU, he encountered students talking openly about their faith, participating in Benediction, and throwing themselves into praise and worship.
“I found it really inspiring. So I wanted to know, like, what was that spark that made everyone else… excited about this more than me?”
He kept coming back — and eventually became part of creating those experiences for others.
One of his most powerful memories came while playing drums with the praise band during a retreat. During Adoration, as the music began to build, David hit a transition a little harder than usual.
“Something about that just immediately sparked tears in someone else’s prayer. Like, I just looked out and saw a girl just bursting into tears, and I was like, there’s a lot of deep power in the spirit here.”
The impact of CSU didn’t end when David graduated.
“It was foundational.”
He knew how easy it could be to lose the practice of faith once the community surrounding it disappeared, so when he moved away after college, finding a Catholic community became a priority. He became a reader at his parish and began attending daily Mass as often as possible.
The relationships lasted, too.
“Oh, yeah, I have lifelong friendships for sure. I mean, one of my friends, Patrick, is the godfather to my son now.”
Eleven years after graduation, David is approaching his 11th anniversary as a software engineer with the same company. He’s married — after eventually meeting his wife through Catholic Match — and is now a father.
Is adulthood what he expected it would be?
No. It’s better.
“I’ve enjoyed experiencing my faith as an adult, like it has a different feel to it than, you know, when someone else is telling me to go to Mass or, you know, hanging out with the Lord. Making the choice yourself.”
For the students walking into Catholic Student Union today, David’s advice is simple:
“I would say make the most of everything that this community has to offer.”
But what he hopes they ultimately find there goes much deeper than activities, retreats or even friendships.
“The saving power of God. There are so many things that keep us chained and sad and isolated. Oh, the community here has the ability to, like, not only just bring us together, but bring us back.“
For David “Living the Dream” Lafontant, a phrase picked up during freshman orientation became something of a philosophy for life. And that same week, a stop at a table led him into a community that would help shape his faith, his friendships and the man he would become.
