STEPHANIE MORK

Another year, another birthday right? I feel like for some people (at least me), birthdays always bring about a strange sense of nostalgia and this year was no exception for me.

When I was younger and wanted to be like my big sister, Kristin, I would listen to her Switchfoot and Relient K CD’s to feel cool.  There is a song by Switchfoot called Twenty-Four.  The song was written by one of the vocalists and it is about him being 24 and a little unsure about life. (The whole album by the way is pretty dang good).  I remember thinking, wow 24 is so old. Well.. here I am folks.

This year was extra special for me because I felt like I got to celebrate with all of my people. My family, my friends and of course – Jonas the cat.  I know that a birthday is just a day, but I have come to love celebrating birthdays, including my own.  It is a chance to celebrate life!  To celebrate that that person was born. That they are alive and living this crazy life that seems to always be shifting and moving like tectonic plates of experiences.

To reminisce on past birthdays brings back a wave of different emotions.  Feeling young and free, feeling loved and special, feeling isolated and lonely, feeling full of sugar and pizza. All the feels.  The past two years have been especially special.  I think I had the most emotions about getting older last year because I was in Italy hanging out by myself at a pizza joint.

I met some other au pairs about a week before my birthday and meeting them restored some of my faith in humanity and the world (maybe exaggerating a little bit)… Because these people didn’t know me at all and wanted to celebrate my life with me.  The gestures that these complete strangers made, despite how small they may seem, were huge to me in that season of feeling isolated yet so alive.

The kindness of other people continues to amaze me and seem to come at a time when I don’t like most people and have a bad attitude towards the human race – so aka I need a reminder that not all people are bad and its usually a big slap in the face.

This year, my faith was already pretty strong in humanity but was multiplied by the love and kindness I felt/feel in this season of my life.  From my parents taking a poor single girl out for dinner, to apple picking with my cousins and nephews, to so many of my favorite beautiful souls gathering to celebrate, finished out by hanging out with Ben Rector and listening to his lovely voice sing about this exact craziness of life.  The weekend left me feeling full of all the best foods but also full of life and gratitude.  It left me feeling alive and so excited to be alive.

Every day alone might not be the craziest best day of my life, but combined, my days make up a pretty damn crazy good life.

Feeling a little bit older and wiser with new goals for (EEK) 25.  Feeling like this adult thing is something that nobody ever really is good at, we all just fake it a little bit.  Feeling so grateful for another year and another birthday.

Now go listen to Ben Rector and you’ll love life a little bit more today 🙂

I went to Texas recently.  Just for fun.  I did a lot of cool things and new things and ate some of the best food I have had in a long time.  Melt in your mouth steak, sticky and soy saucy sushi and sashimi, tacos with meat that literally falls apart, and margs that just made me wonder what the heck is even in a Minnesota margarita.  It was a sweet little vaca spending time with a sweet old friend and my very generous, adventurous and food loving cousin.

My cousin sent me home with this giant textbook from his company that weighs about 10 pounds.  At first I was like what the heck is this, it looks like a dictionary.  But then I started to read it.

It’s basically like a book of quotes with an index of all the words/topics you could ever dream of.  Its actually wonderful and will be such an amazing tool for a writer (ish) person like me.

So why am I talking about success again?  The first word I flipped to in this monster 2,000 page book was success.  Of which there are FIFTEEN pages of quotes, poems, bible verses and proverbs all about success.

These quotes are from Winston Churchill and Confucius to Charles Darwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Franklin and Bob Dylan.  Literally the best gift anyone has ever given me.  I have 2,000 pages of a mix thought provoking, laugh inducing and unique words all at the fingertips of my very thirsty brain.  Ready to slurp up all the inspiration this world is willing to give me.

As I am just a baby in my career life, I can’t help but dream of what success will look like for me in 5 years.  <— but HOLD ON.  Who is to say I am not already successful RIGHT NOW? I am in this perpetual state of working towards a career goal and being antsy to get there – not stopping (at least not very often) to look around at how successful I am, even if I am not doing my dream job or even half of my dream job.

It is easy for me to get caught up dreaming of what will be, when all we have is now.  I know it in my head, but sometimes other things get in the way and make me forget.  The world wants us to keep up with it, enticing us with new iPhones, fancy things, trips to Asia and basically having a lot of money to throw at things that don’t always mean a lot in the grand scheme of life.

So here are a few things about success that I am trying to take to heart in this season of life:

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;  to appreciate beauty; to leave the world bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. Its the person who gets out of the shower, dries off & does something about it that makes a difference.”
-Nolan K. Bushnell

“Behold the turtle, He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.”
-James B. Conant

“You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.”
-Vernon Howard

This is a long post, but so many words in this book have already challenged me and made me take (another) long hard look at my attitude towards what I have been given and all that I have accomplished and will accomplish.  To look at it with gratitude and content rather than impatience and criticism.

This is water people.  The water that we swim in every day – we just have to choose what we are going to pay attention to. Every. Morning. We Get To Choose.