I woke up today only to find that I had 6 missed calls on my cell phone! Of course, I went into panic mode, assuming only that something must be wrong if I had so many missed calls from the same person. But, to my delight, I listened to the first voicemail and found Mark, the boyfriend of my good friend Kelly, on the other end. He had called "just to tell me" that he had plans to propose to her tonight (!!) and was wondering if I could meet up with them and some other friends and family for a celebration get-together later that evening. Ummm... of course!!

As I was driving over, I began to think of all the things I appreciate about them as individuals and as a couple. In general, I am so overly blessed by my friends - they are indeed people of integrity, ambition, spirit, and - hello! - are so much fun. So, as Kelly always says, I spent the evening "drinking the drinks and laughing the laughs" with a very happy group. It was a smile-y night, to say the least.

I need to keep better tally of what makes me laugh.

Seriously, people, life is funny.

Time to Travel

Well, I have actually followed through on some of my goals for 2009. Not only have I signed up for a PALS certification class, which is more about my professional development, I have created an account on expedia.com and secured two trips that will take place over the next two months. A road trip may be in the works for the end of March (fingers-crossed), and expedia might be getting more of my paycheck come April.

So far we've got...
TN Feb
Cabo March
NYC? April

Any suggestions for May?

Another goal of mine was to get more involved in my community (via nursing?) and I am hoping to start orientation at a free clinic this Tuesday. We'll see what happens with this one - work is picking up and that might make my schedule a bit tougher to work with. No, actually, I should make this a priority. People need help and I don't need to spend all my days off sitting around. Or going on vacation.

Correction from last post:
A friend came to me and said, "I don't get your last post, you know success isn't defined by all that other stuff". Yes, I do. I don't know if I made my point very clear, or if it was just lost. So, to be clear: I know that success isn't measured through possessions, jobs, degrees, awards, etc, etc. But, I kind of feel this pressure "in the real world" to prove myself. And in the "world" proving yourself is often done through showing off these tokens of success. While I do not want to buy into that superficial approach to life, I was feeling a bit weak to it. The blog was sort of a self pep-talk.

Moving on...

I saw Revolutionary Road yesterday and I want to TALK ABOUT IT SO BADLY!!! So, people, hurry up and go see it so I can blog about it and externalize all my thoughts. I feel like it is a movie I need to learn from & I certainly can't do that by holding all my thoughts in! So, go... seriously, do it now. For yourself... and a little bit for me :-)

Winter might not be a frustrating time for everyone, but it certainly is for me. It's hard to stay hopeful when you can feel your inside seize every time you step outside, you know? Let me tell you, winter in MN is not fun. And those who know me know that I love fun.

Anyway, thinking about my freezing toes is getting me side tracked. My idea/plan for this blog was actually to write about success. What success means to people, how we like to communicate it to the world, etc. I suppose it might be helpful to clarify what I mean exactly by success. I guess the pressures I have been feeling lately have to do with the right job, right look, right relationships, right ideas... does that help you see where I'm coming from? Ok, I'm going to dive right in...

When coming into success, there are different ways in which people react. Some like to clear their throat and yell, "I've arrived!!"... some people like to share it with someone special... some never really know if they've made it or not because they never sit still long enough to be satisfied. I have seen many friends come into what I see as success. The interesting observation is not this "arrival" or whatever, but how they react to it. Most are humbled (I really do have exceptional friends). Some are not satisfied and just crave more and more. And, then there are some who just stare and wonder "when is it all going to crash in around me?" I see all of these reactions as motivating in one way (direction) or another and it leaves me on nights like this wondering, "what is success going to look like for me?" and "how do I know when I have it?"

Well, simply put, there are indicators of success and mostly they have to do with tangible things that can be shown off. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of things that I want in my life. They range from healthy relationships to a challenging career to a Master's degree to hang on my wall to maybe someday a pair of beautiful Manolo Blahniks :-) But, this is what I wonder -- are these things success, indicators of success, or just a cover?

This internal discussion has been motivated by certain observations I've made over the last week. Just during my day to day activities I've overheard statements like, "Apparently, I'm really awesome on paper and in real life" and "I'm a good American - I work really hard AND spend a lot of money" and my favorite is the nod of agreement and the awkward "mm-hmm" whenever a compliment is offered, instead of the polite "thank you". Whatever, I'm not as concerned with these actual examples, mostly I just wanted to highlight them because I feel like offering examples is a good way of building solid discussion. Really, when I get down to it, my point is that these public expressions of success make me uncomfortable. Not only are they potentially oh so temporary, but what do they do to build people up positively? They are at their root selfish, yes? Self serving, self promoting, self loving. Where does that leave those of us who are tempted by these sweet fruits of success (hello, Manolos!) but really know deep down that this is actually not where success lives. How are we to fight it? How are we supposed to combat this elevation of self and love of success? It's almost like a twisted form of 21st Century Social Evolution. Whoever becomes coolest the fastest wins.

GO.

No, wait. I'm not letting this social pressure have power over what I think is going to be success for me. Maybe I won't have much to show for my plan to just "care for others" but maybe I don't need tangible evidence. Maybe it isn't really care if you go into it for yourself. Maybe, just maybe, if I go into it this way the little evidences of "success" won't overshadow the whole point of it all. Because we all know that Degrees and beautiful friends and interesting (socially "hip") passions are not necessarily bad things. So perhaps it isn't about avoiding them, just not using them as our main motivation.

Yes, I like it. Ok, now GO.

I have plans to write more about this wonderful day - the inaugural day of President Elect Barack Obama - but, for now, please enjoy this video of MLK Jr....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/7838851.stm

...and this video of the celebrations in Kenya...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7436720.stm

I am using this post to show off this beautiful nephew of mine....