Priorities

Well, as I was finishing my last post I thought about this, but decided it was a little too serious for that one so...here goes the second post of tonight, aren't ya'll lucky?

Well, I've been thinking about priorities a bit lately. And I've been thinking about what should be, what I say is, and what actualy are, my priorities.

You know, the "right" answers? Church (and by implication, God), School, Family, money for food and shelter, honest work...Well, those are my priorities...to a point. But I think as I examine my life there are things that I also count personally as important. My friends (and by extension their blogs), reading good literature, and expanding my mind in other ways. But where on the priority list do all of these things fit, what is the balance that I'm trying to make here?

At this point I need to add in two more priorities, although not ones that I am proud of, Internet chatting, and console gaming. Not bad in and of themselves, but sometimes they take precedence over much more important things.

So, how do you make the decision to choose, I mean if it were presented to you as: "You can either choose God, or your book." I doubt many people would choose the book...but, what happens is much more subtle. I can read my book now and the scriptures later, I can talk to _____ now and do homework later, I can play FFX now and prepare my lesson later... etc. They don't seem like they are big things, just procrastinating a little bit. But eventually I've managed to fill my life up with so many 'good' things that I don't have enough room for the 'best' things.

So that requires that I start cutting things out. Well...what goes? Obviously it's not religion, school or family. I simply cannot morally do that. But books, games, IM, these are all things that I find entertaining, the joy of the moment if you will. I know I can't give up all of them just yet, I would go crazy without some form of stress releif. But what do you give up? And how much? I don't really expect anyone to answer those...which is why the blog is called Rhetorical questions, but hopefully putting this down on paper will assist me in setting first things first.

Something that just came to mind: My second mission president in his first real zone conference put up a slide show, with a quote from a bumper sticker, "The main thing, is to make the main thing, the main thing." I kinda liked it. And it fits well here, life for most members of the church isn't a struggle between murder and celestial marriage, but rather between terrestial and celestial laws. And the goal in life is to start picking the celestial stuff.