Rest in Peace, Mr. Jobs

"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward;
you can only connect them looking backwards.
So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."



“.. almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - 
these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” -Steve Jobs

Summertime and the Living is Easy

I've always been one to "stop and smell the roses," but I think I've only become more attune to beauty as I've gotten older. I feel like I'm continually gushing about one thing or another (sorry about that, guys), but I feel like I'm finally enjoying life. Summertime and the living is EASY.

When I first started this blog, it was a place where I wanted to write about beauty... Fekkai hair products, NARS' bronzer, my favorite Chanel lip gloss, my latest Vuitton purchase. Superficial beauty. And while it's absolutely clear that I'm still very much into those things, I feel like my life has taken me in a new direction where I'm finding so much more beauty in things that matter.

An afternoon with my aunt and grandma... Basking in the sun by the pool... Feeling happily exhausted after a great run... Appreciating the grandeur of the Colorado mountains with my best friend... Having dinner with someone that makes me smile... Going to the farmer's market with an old friend... Realizing that I'm a hell of a lot stronger than I ever imagined.

It's great to have nice stuff to look at. I enjoy pretty things as much as the next woman (if not more). But at the end of the day, pretty things are just that: things. They don't make a person who they are. I guess that's what I want to convey with this blog. There is so much beauty in this world, but it's only there if you have your eyes open to it. I don't want to look back on my life in fifty years and wonder what exactly I did with my life. I want to say I lived this life with my entire heart and soul, truly living in the moment of every experience. Life isn't always beautiful (trust me on that one), but there is so much beauty to be taken from every experience.

xx

Friends With Benefits

"You know what I discovered - it's not who you want to spend Friday night with, it's who you want to spend all day Saturday with." -Friends With Benefits

So cute and emotionally realistic. Love romantic comedies that aren't full of cliched scenarios... movies that show that sometimes you have to go on a winding journey to get your "happily ever after." That's life and that's love; it's complicated, it's unexpected, and it's not always excerpted from a fairytale. Justin Timberlake is no Mr. Big, but his charismatic personality is charming and sweet.

On a fun note, here's one of the featured throwbacks featured in the movie. Trust me, it's even more adorable with Timberlake rapping. ;) Already on my workout playlist.

 Jump, jump.
xx

For what it's worth...

"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again." -The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

What I Know For Certain...

Yesterday would have been my mom's 51st birthday. She passed away 20 years ago last month from a malignant brain tumor. She was just thirty. My mom was a force of nature; a woman that left a legacy because of her genuine fire and beauty. Despite the fact that I was just three when she passed, I feel that her story and energy continues to give me strength, even as a 23-year-old woman. This is what her life (and untimely death) has ultimately taught me, and what I try to live my life based on.

Live with intention.
Life is precious. You get once chance... ONE. Make the most of it. My mom is the greatest example of someone that made every single day count. My mom did what she loved; without regret, without fear, without second thought. The world is a great big place that is to be discovered and cherished.

Live passionately.
Feel what brings you fire, what makes you come alive... and then use that as a compass to follow your dreams. Like my mom, I'm a big believer in "do it big, or go home." For me, there is no middle ground; I'll either put my heart and soul into something/someone, or I won't invest anything at all. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and maybe that's put me at a greater risk for pain; but I'm certain that pain is worth the risk of living truthfully and with passion.


Live with heart.
Love is the only thing that makes life worthwhile. End of story.

Live with honesty. 
With truth, there is freedom. Tell people how you feel about them, even at the risk of rejection. Perhaps what is so amazing about my mom's legacy is how she left her mark on such a vast amount of people. I still have strangers approach me and tell me how my mom made a difference in their lives. In the words of John Mayer, "It's better to say too much, than never say what you need to say again."

Live without fear.
My mom lived without fear. This is something I struggle with; being fearful of failure, of intimidating situations, of feeling like I might never amount to enough. Recently, I started to lose these fears by choosing to face them head-on; there's no better way to lose fear than to look it in the eye. Fear can paralyze you from getting what you want and reaching your full potential... and I care too much about my dreams to let that happen.


Live in beauty.
My mom possessed an external beauty that stood out in a room full of people. My grandma loves to tell me the story of how a man once stopped her in the mall to tell her that my mom was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. Perhaps what is much more valuable is the fact that my mom possessed an internal beauty that surpassed the external. My mom had been a model in her early twenties, modeling in New York and in California. She enjoyed designer clothes and getting dolled up, but it didn't make her who she was. Her beauty came from the lives she touched as a psychologist, from being a loving wife, from being a devoted mother, from being a friend that would drop everything to help. She found the beauty in this life and embraced it. This is something that I carry with me everyday.

There is beauty in everything... if only your eyes are open to it.

xx

Oprah's Words of Wisdom

"We all are called. Everybody has a calling and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it. Because that is what a calling is. It lights you up and it lets you know that you are exactly where you are supposed to be, doing exactly what you are suppose to be doing.

Live from the heart of yourself… you have to know what lights the spark in you so that you in your own way can illuminate the world.

Each one of you has your own platform. Do not let the trappings here fool you. Mine is a stage in a studio, yours is wherever you are. No matter how large or small that reach is…wherever you are, that is your platform, your stage, your circle of influence. That is your talk show. And that is where your power lies. Every day you are showing people who you are. You are letting your life speak for you. And when you do that you will receive in direct proportion to how you give.

You have the power to change someone’s life. Look around and you will see…everybody has a calling. Mine aligned with my profession, my job. But not everyone gets paid for it.  But everyone is called. It may be your skill of listening. Your talent for nurturing and mothering. Do not get it confused. It doesn’t have to be some high affluent something or something that makes you famous. 

Start embracing the life that is calling you and use your life to serve the world."

-Oprah Winfrey, 5-25-11

Kindness

Doing a bit of spring cleaning, I went through piles of old magazines that I had stashed away. Flipping through the March issue of Oprah, I stumbled upon a poem that really hit home. At the risk of sounding like the world's biggest cheeseball, I've started to appreciate the value in the struggles I've faced. I've realized that you can't truly experience happiness without having hardships along the way, making everything that much sweeter. I wouldn't be who I am or appreciate where I'm at without the obstacles that seemed so unconquerable at the time. Love how this poem describes that so perfectly...

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride,
thinking the bus will never stop.

"Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)"

A few of my own reflections on graduation/change/growth will be posted later this week (and trust me, I have plenty of them). For now, I leave you with someone else's words of wisdom...

"If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists,
Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
Than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now... 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind;
You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself
And recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you
And how fabulous you really looked.

How unbelievably beautiful....

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Ever stop and wonder how incredibly lucky we are? Just to exist... to live... to breathe.  Every single day that we are given is a little present in itself. Sure, life can be difficult... brutal, sometimes. Hell, today was a depressing day for me. But the fact that I'm even here to experience this little thing called life is amazing.

 “Maybe there are 

no right moments, 

right guys, 

right answers

...

maybe you just have to 

say what's in your heart.”

-Carrie Bradshaw, Sex & the City

"The Road Less Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost, 1915

Changes

Words to live by

“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.” -Peter Marshall