Big Rock ... little rock?

As we get older, our priorities continuously change ... and decisions are made on how we value different things in our lives. I always wonder if I'm doing things for the right reasons, and whether I'm maintaining the "balance." School seems to throw everything out of whack. For example, I'm about three weeks away from finals. Everythings gonna come real quick ... mayhem of preparing for finals, actually doing finals, write-on competition, start working (and finalizing the job comes into play somewhere in between finals-prep), begin networking for fall interviews (for jobs for next summer) ... on a personal note, juggle a couple of weddings, parents visiting, finding a new apartment ... try and take a road trip with the crew. The lines begin to blur ... where to obligations to school work end, and "real" work begin, and when do the school obligations come back ... is it all about working towards that one goal of finding the end (i.e. job to pay off law school loans) ... when do personal responsibilities become the priority?

I did a workshop while at K&S, and it was about prioritizing our work days ... and we were given a jar, a bunch of big rocks, pebbles, and sand. The jar symbolizes our daily lives, and if the way we fill the jar is illustrative of how we live our lives. What would you put in first? Well, if you put in the sand first, there's gonna be less place for the pebbles and big rocks. And you can see where this is going. The result from this workshop was that to strike the right balance - you have to first put in the big rocks till you can't fit any more, then the pebbles, and then the sand (they'll fill in the spaces). The moral of the story is - the big rocks are your #1 priorities, the most important things to you. The pebbles are those that are important, but aren't #1, and so on. The tough part is - we need to figure out what those big rocks are in our lives ... right now I'm struggling with just that.

In the ideal world, this is what it would look like ...
Big Rocks - School, family/friends
Pebbles - finding job, travelling, work
Sand - all the other drama

*Sigh* I wish it were that easy.

20 days, app. 20 hrs till finals. app 33 days until this semester is over.

Back to outlining ... the big rock blocking the light at the end of the tunnel.