STEPHANIE MORK

On my last night in California last week I was sitting at a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. (classy right?), waiting for my fish tacos and watching the sun set over Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.  I looked up and saw this quote written above my table, “If you don’t know where you’re goin, it’s gonna be hard to get there.”   Probably something that Forest Gump said – as the place was filled with random quotes and Gumpisms.

How fitting for an in between things/traveler/half adult as myself?

If you repeat that quote a few times in your head it gets a little scarier each time.

Despite the scariness of the thought, its pretty obvious.  Of course! If you don’t know your end point, how will you make your way there? Applying it to traveling is one thing – but applying it to life is where the scariness sets in.

I have always been better at making smaller goals for myself.  Something that is tangible that I can DO or see or feel.  But it makes me wonder, what really is my endpoint? Does there need to be an endpoint? What if life is just meant to be about figuring what life is meant to be?

I have been learning that if you want something in life, the only thing that is stopping you is yourself.  What do you want? How badly do you want it? I am slowly but surely piecing together some of the things that I want for my future and small but tangible ways to get there.

With my first adventure of 2017 in the books – it’s time to start thinking about my next and bigger adventure of this year.  At the end of March, I will be heading to Nicaragua to do some volunteer work with an organization called Comamos Juntos or, we eat together. I will be there for about 7 weeks, living with a host family, working with the other volunteers and community members to collect and redistribute produce from the markets to the communities.  You can read more about the details of what I will be doing here.

I am mixed bag of emotions.  I am terrified.  I can’t speak Spanish, I have a weird digestive system, and I am a blond tall female going to a place where I will stick out like a sore thumb.  I am so excited though.  I get to learn Spanish, try new foods, be the foreigner and tell my story, love people, and learn more about another country as well as an international nonprofit.

Sometimes in my life I wonder, what the heck am I even doing? Maybe I’m a little crazy, maybe I have a little too much lust for adventure but I like to think I am a little brave.  I have found the things that feed my soul and make me feel alive and I can guarantee you – this will do just that.  A little discomfort and a little tension remind us of what it’s like to live with comfort and allows us to better appreciate the moments of contentment.

I have learned to truly soak in the moments of feeling free and alive.  The moments that send shivers down your spine or tingles in your fingers.  The moments that are so vivid in your memories because all your senses came alive and breathed in the scents and sounds and feelings of those moments.  I want more of those moments in my life.

I’ll leave you with this:

“I don’t do it to be a Good Samaritan  I do it to feed my soul. We’re on this planet to love and be loved.  The to love part means you’ve got to help.  This is why I was put on this earth.”  – David Foster

So where am I going?  For now, Nicaragua.

For my family, 2017 hasn’t started out in a way that anyone could have imagined or could ever understand.  In the early hours of January 1st my baby nephew of 23 weeks old passed away.  Something too tragic to even comprehend is a life lost that never really began.  A life that would have/could have been full of love and laughter and mistakes and triumphs and learning.

A sorrow that we will never understand the why or how but something that will mark this year with a big black X – but nonetheless that black X  is covered with a big ole bright white light that comes from the sweetness of the hours my nephew was loved and cherished, the people that have supported this family and the fact that little Afton is hanging out with Jesus right now.  The double edged sword of being a human has reared its head this 2017 early on with the sweetness of life and the tragedies of life and the in betweens that we sometimes take for granted.

All lives lost deserve mourning and grieving and we will grieve for Afton’s life, but to most of our dismay time doesn’t stand still.  How do you even look past something like this to the future, when what you imagine the future will be like changes so drastically?

What I can say is this: hold on to your loved ones, cherish the sweet moments, celebrate the triumphs but also sit in the tension, embrace your tears, feel your feelings and do it with people by your side because nobody can do this alone.

Every New Year it seems there is something bad about the old year.  But friends, what was good about that year?  Turn the tables on yourself and look at life from the flip side of the coin.

No year is perfect, and 2017 is no exception but there is still a lot of love and kindness and laughter swirling up and about and around – and I can feel that it is going to cover the rest of this year like an overly frosted chocolate cupcake with rainbow sprinkles on top.

Two quotes I am thinking about here, one I am sure you have already heard:

“Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”
– Dolly Parton

and:

“At what age did I start to think that where I was going was more important than where I already was?  When was it that I began to believe that the most important things about what I was doing was getting it over with?”
– Colin Beavan, No Impact Man

First of all, read that book.  Even if you don’t care about the environment, he talks about things that he and his family gained back by eliminating the unnecessary clutter out of their lives.  Got rid of the tv and started to spend time with his baby, got rid of packaged foods and relearned how to cook and spend time with his family over meals. Do it.

Today is Thanksgiving.  The most thankful holiday of the year.  It seems a bit ironic that half the country spends it rushing around throwing money at turkeys and showing their turkey stuffed faces at each family gathering.  I feel like MY favorite part of holidays are actually slowing down.  Granted I don’t have kids or a husband so I have the luxury of kind of doing whatever I want with my day off, but I plan to carry this through in some fashion when I do have a family.

To intentionally stop checking email, try to push work things or stress things out of my head and just be.  Enjoy the time spent with my sometimes crazy family and the lazy walks around the neighborhood, and chats over coffee and sticky rolls.

Anyways, this Thanksgiving I want to make an intentional effort to be ok with right now.  I think it is a daily reminder for me to slow down and stop thinking and planning so much for whats on the edge of the horizon.  What is almost in my grasp, but not quite.

So lets try to lean in to what’s happening now, even if its not our favorite.  I won’t be single forever (or so I hope), I won’t be broke forever (or so I hope), so those are things that I will try to embrace in this season that is unique to me and where I am.  I also won’t be this independent forever or free to kind of do whatever I want.  So I will embrace that in this season as well.  What can you embrace in this season of your life?

Today I am thankful for days off, good coffee, my house, our cat Jo, good books that make me think, and a brain that allows me to think and have thoughts. I am thankful for my jobs and flexible jobs at that, for my friends that are quirky and big hearted.  I am thankful to have today to spend with family that I want to spend time with and I enjoy being with.

I am, as they say, #blessed.  Slow down today and live a little.  Eat TWO pieces of pie darn it.

A few things have prompted the inspiration for this post.  First: I am rereading No Impact Man by Colin Beavan.  Second: I made friends with a customer at work [to be explained in further detail].  Third: Election stress.

No Impact Man is about a man and his family who spend a year in an experiment to have a zero carbon impact on the environment. No trash, no motorized transportation, no electricity, local food etc.  Aka basically impossible in today’s world.  It is an interesting read if you’re into that sort of thing.

Anyways – he starts the book off by explaining why he decided to do this.  He had been concerned about global warming and thinking about writing a book about his increasing worries about how we are trashing our planet.  He wanted to write a book to change other peoples perspective and about how important it is that we recognize global warming – not realizing that he was doing nothing in his own life to change his habits.

He says, “I was worried sick about something and doing nothing about it.  I wasn’t sick of the world. I was sick of myself.  I was sick of my comfortable and easy pretension of helplessness.”  So he set about to change himself instead of changing other people and how they treat and view the world.

I think that many times this is true in my own life.  I want to blame the worlds problems on someone/something else when I should first be looking at what I can do about the problem in my own life and in my own circles.  Assuming that I am helpless to do anything about the problem.

Why do we do that?  We are concerned about pollution and keep buying/using cars, paper products and plastic bags.  We are upset about electing a President that stands for exclusion and belittlement and we respond with f*ck Trump and protests.

Just simply, no.

We elected this president.  We are responsible for the decline in our planet.  What are we doing about it?  Responding to hate with hate, responding to past irresponsibility with more irresponsibility and chosen ignorance.  Why?

Because sometimes its easier to stay quiet when there is tension, sometimes its easier to do what everyone else is doing.  Is it that hard to be nice and listen?  To start taking responsibility for what is happening in the world?

I am not trying to be pretentious and say that I am the best and I can do no wrong OR that I reflect how I feel about the planet with my lifestyle.  Not at all.  I do a lot of things wrong and occasionally get it right.  But I do want to tell you about one of my customers at Caribou.  Recently, I have been feeling like I am tired of making my way through life with lattes and mochas.  Last week, one of our regular customers that I didn’t pay that much attention to came and asked me if she could have her coffee and pay for it later after she went to the bank.  Without thinking I offered to give her a dollar to cover the cost of her coffee.

She drank her coffee and came back a few hours later with a little card and a 5 dollar bill.  She said, “Now you put this in your pocket.  I know what it’s like to make a living in the service industry and its hard work.  It’s rare that you come across someone that cares and has some sense about them.  You keep that head of yours on straight now.”

I almost started crying right there.

It’s hard to feel like you make a difference at all when you serve people coffee all day – but I think I forget that a little kindness can go a long way.  I can and am making a difference in my world and community when I choose to be kind.  When I choose to notice the people around me as people and not just see that annoying lady who orders the most complicated drink ever or the Asian man who comes in for coffee and gets about 4 refills before he leaves.  These people have lives too.  And kindness repeats itself.  I think my customer had a bigger impact on me with her kindness than I did on her.

I am not saying it’s easy because it’s so hard.  It’s a daily choice.  But no matter how you make your living, how you spend your days or where you go – there is always the option to be kind.

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.

Water is one of my favorite things. I like to drink it, be in it, on it, near it, under it… Water is so mundane and normal but then it’s not.  It’s kind of amazing when you think about how this clear liquid ish type substance goes into our bodies and spreads out so we can live and move and breath.

Water is also amazing because fish can breath it.

What?  That is so weird and cool and there had to be someone creative that made that be a thing [thanks, God].  That there are creatures that can breath the stuff we drink.  What if a fish gets thirsty? Do fish get thirsty?

A friend recently recommended a book called, “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace.  My first thought was like wow, that’s not a creative title but then I read it and the title very much makes sense and is, in fact, pretty dang creative.

It is actually a graduation speech by David Foster Wallace for Kenyon College in 2005, so the book can be read in one sitting.  As a recent ish grad, I can very much resonate and find meaning in his thought provoking and blunt words about a liberal arts education and adulty lives.

He talks about defying the natural default setting we are hard wired with living life centered around ourselves.  He talks of the liberal arts education “teaching us how to think”, which in other words means teaching us how to filter what we think and how we think.

I very much believe that life is full of hard things and good things and mundane things and things that are out of our control.  But this little read brought me back to remember that life can really be what we make it.  If I am always focused on what’s wrong about my super normal and boring life, I will go crazy and never be content.  I am convinced that there is something good in every day, every situation, and every person – and to see that, to focus on that good, takes work and intentionality.

How will I choose to perceive people and things and experiences? Will I be annoyed at the obnoxiously long line at Starbucks or be kind to the barista who is probably having a very stressful day? (not to mention that if I can afford Starbucks, things are honestly probably going ok).

What about the woman who can’t find her pass for the bus and is holding up the line when it’s raining out and my new shoes are getting wet and my hair looks like a matted ball of wet string? Maybe she had a really stressful day and left her pass at work or maybe her 2 year old son was playing with it yesterday.  We don’t know.

We don’t know what others are going through in their daily lives and sometimes, I find at least, it’s better to assume that someone else might be having a worse day than me when I am feeling like everything is unfair and I am having a bad hair day.

Choosing what to pay attention to can define your day to day, week to week and year to year.  Life.

What will you choose to pay attention to this week? How will you break the natural default setting of self centeredness?

Also, read this book.

My grandma Mork passed away about a week and a half ago.  Unknowingly when she passed away, I was vacationing in one of the most beautiful places in Minnesota – The Boundary Waters.  As we were driving home after hearing the news, I couldn’t help but think how she would be put off that we cut our vacation short because of her.  She loved life and didn’t want others to be concerned with her or worry about her.

When I got home, I was looking through my books and found one that she had given me this year but I never actually read.  It’s called, “Now is the Time: 170 Ways to Seize the Moment.”

How can I best honor my beautiful grandmothers life? I think this book sums it up very well and I want to share with you a few of my favorites:

Now is the time…

to get a good night’s sleep (this is classic grandma Mork)

Break the cycles:
of working late; mindless TV; nights out. 
Reconnect with your body.
Show it some respect.
Recharge your batteries.
Savor the results.

Now is the time…

to unleash your imagination

The power of your mind is virtually unlimited and largely untapped.
With imagination we can create new worlds and improve old ones.
We can live our wildest dreams and dream our wildest lives.

Now is the time…

to choose freedom

Too often we make our own cages:
    of the mind, or the heart.
Or we allow technology to make them for us.  
But we have the keys to unlock them.
We only need the will to use them.
Unlock your heart, love freely.
Unlock your mind, live freely.

Now is the time…

to chase your dream

We make our own limitations:
    through self doubt; fear; and conformity.
But we can also expand our horizons.
We can push through the barriers, real and imagined.
If you have a dream,
   give it a chance.
Empower yourself.

This is by no means an exhaustive list.  There are 166 more ways listed in this book of how to seize the moment that are valuable to take to mind and heart, but I thought these represented my grandma well.

These words belong to the author of the book, Patrick Lindsay (highly recommend).  Thank you sir for words that stir all kinds of thoughts and emotions. Thank you grandma for standing behind everything I have accomplished and want to accomplish.  Thank you for showing me how to put family first, love Jesus and be humble and kind.

The thing about memories is that they don’t change.  I have so many memories about my grandma that are bursting with the joy of Christmas; the sweetness of homemade applesauce; and the connectedness of countless cups of coffee with an over talkative 2o something granddaughter (me).  I will treasure these memories and these words that remind me of her for the rest of my little life.

She was a listener, master chef, kind, strong, humble and basically everything I want to be as a grandma and a woman.  She will be missed.

For those of you who know me and don’t know that I am not going to school this year anymore–> I am not going to school this year.  I was on track to go to grad school at the University of Minnesota for public health.  A beautiful and really good program.  But after some thinking and answering some hard questions – I decided that taking this year to explore and create and learn outside the classroom had more pros than cons.  One of them being the fact that I don’t need a master’s to do some of the things that I want to do.

So – I am in that dreaded in between time.  Applying and interviewing for jobs, wondering what kinds of jobs I am even qualified for, and realizing that every choice I make at this point will have a way of shaping my future and career.

This in between time is also kind of exhilarating.  I get to create my future, build up what my life is going to be about, find new things to fall in love with and continue learning with a lust for life.  This year, once again is not what I would have expected it to be, but I am really excited about what is on the horizon.  If I don’t do anything else, I will be perfectly content with making gourmet coffee drinks and writing about nutrition all the day long.
But ya know getting another job would be nice 🙂

Upward and onward.

Check out this article that I wrote about Caribou Coffee.  Three loves merged into one: coffee, nutrition and words.

I get most of my inspiration from other peoples words.  I knew that I was a word person when I was in an art museum in Florence and I mostly just wanted to read the quotes by famous people.  The art was nice, but the words moved and impacted me.

Most recently, I was in the Chicago Cultural Center with these great big domes that were full of stained glass and were stunning [you should go there if you are ever in Chi].  But yet again I was drawn to the words written on the edges of the dome; “Books are the legacies a great genius leaves to mankind which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.”

BYE.  What a beautiful sentence full of intricate words and thoughts.

I will talk more about books and words another time.  Anyways, the premise of this blog post comes from a book I just finished called Essentialism.  First of all I highly recommend it to anyone who feels stressed, busy, and like there are not enough hours in the day.  I promise you, there are enough hours.  God gave us 24 hours in a day for a reason, right?

Three things that I want to share with you about the main points in this book:

1. Life is like a closet.  Eventually you might have piles of things in your closet you don’t wear, don’t fit you or you don’t even like.  Why are they still in your closet?  Getting rid of old clothes is like ridding your life of the cluttered obligations and responsibilities you have built up that you don’t even know why you said yes or what purpose it serves.  If you don’t have time, don’t say yes to another ok thing or even good thing – say yes to only the best – the things that fit you, flatter you, that you love and bring you joy (this goes for clothes as well as in life).  Capsule wardrobe anyone? 

2. Being an essentialist means you recognize that you can’t do it all.  You understand that less is most definitely better because heres the thing – we can multitask, but we can’t multi focus.  Ever been talking to someone who starts texting?  Where did that conversation go?  We can’t be in one conversation here and then be thinking about another conversation happening over there.  We just can’t.  So less is better in the way that when we place our efforts on fewer things, we can devote head on focus and brainpower that we wouldn’t otherwise.

3. An essentialist enjoys the moment.  “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” – Socrates. The question we must ask ourselves is ‘what is important right now?’  We have lists on lists for what to do next week, next year and so on – but what if we just had a list for today and then for that hour?  Learning how to prioritize and get your head out of the future can help us in the daily struggle of being present.

I’ll leave you with this:

“Life is available only in the present moment. If you abandon the present moment you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh