Priorities - They happen whether you plan it or not!

On my first night attending Fuel - a Campus Crusade weekly meeting @ BSU - Billie spoke on priorities and how we spend our time. I left with this nugget: the things that I choose to spend my time, energy, and money on are the things that are most important to me. It's interesting to me that it doesn't matter how much I say something is the most important or simply decide that something is my highest priority. I can say, "I love you" from dawn til dusk, but if I don't back up that phrase with quality time and meaningful actions, the words mean nothing.

Sometimes I feel like something should be most important to me, like SCHOOL, for example. Culturally, it is engrained in me that I need to finish my degree as soon as possible (to be successful) and get straight A's (to be successful) and spend countless hours studying (to be successful). Even though I know I operate out of this mindset far too often, I have SO much to say against it!

(1) What is success really?! Do I want to be deemed a "successful, confident woman" by the world's standards of competition, greed, and power or by the standards of a godly woman? One who possesses wisdom, grace, and dignity?
(2) "Success" - no matter how you define it - is NOT where my identity is found, so I need to stop searching for it there!
(3) School is not my number one priority... so I need to stop acting like it is. Yes, I want to do well and be a good steward of the money that the Lord has provided for me to even be ABLE to take classes this semester. But at the same time, I need to recognize that it really is okay that school isn't my number one priority. I don't have to try to hold up this image that it IS (attempting to spend my time that way) when it really is NOT (my time generally does not reflect that) because that will just lead to guilt... feeling like I failed in some way. But I really didn't FAIL anything, because school isn't my priority! I don't know if that makes any sense, but the devil sure is tricky in how he created this false ideal for me to live up to when I don't even really want to! wow. I would much rather spend my time reading (learning & growing), writing, focusing on college ministry, building relationships. THESE are the things that I was created to do and I don't want the silly struggle to appear successful to get in the way of that.

Clearly, I need to get my time, energy and money on the same page as my true priorities. The dictionary defines priorities as:  "something given or meriting attention before competing alternatives." What is given or merits attention before competing alternatives in your own life? Is that the thing that you really want to hold the number one spot?