Working on this activity was actually very eye-opening, forcing me to really examine myself and determine what I truly care about in life. Some of the values that I labeled as "non-important to me " kind of surprised me, such as the "achievement" value. I love having a sense of accomplishment, but after really thinking about it, I realized that I didn't care about a plaque or award, as long as I got my work done.

Not Important to Me

In my "Not Important to Me" group, I put Achievement, Fame, Non-Conformity, World Peace, and Ecology. While I do feel a sense of pride when I get recognized for doing a good job on something, I don't set out to get my name on a plaque when I do something, and I feel the same way about Fame. For Non-Conformity, I've never seen the point of it. While individualism is important in a certain sense, I've never understood why people tie their identity into "being different". I put World Peace in this category as well because while I would like for there to be peace instead of strife, I don't plan to join any causes pushing for peace. I'll pray for peace, but I won't stay awake at night worrying about it. Finally, I put Ecology as "Most Not-Important Thing" for a similar reason. It may sound selfish, but more than likely, anything my generation does probably won't have any huge impacts until much later in humanity's time on this earth. I appreciate that people care enough about this topic to provide information on it, but I haven't seen anything to make me care that much about it.

Important to Me

In between "Not Important to Me" and "Very Important to Me", I ended up with Cooperation, Safety, Loving, Leisure, and Humility. For these, I care about them, but not enough to justify placing them in the "Very Important" category. I feel like being able to cooperate is a huge part of being in a successful community, having some sort of safety provides a solid starting point for creating a family, being loving is something we're called to be in the Scriptures, leisure helps keeps us sane amidst the busyness of the world, and humility is another key virtue we're called to possess.

Very Important to Me

This category was very difficult to narrow down for me. Ultimately I decided upon naming Responsibility, Friendship, Faithfulness, God's Will, and Family as being the most important things in my life. I'm a very social person, and most friendships rely heavily upon making responsible decisions regarding them and staying faithful in what you're called be to faithful in. Having grown up Christian, God's will is important, but admittedly not as important as it needs to be. Finally, my family's seen a lot, and throughout everything we've been nothing but strengthened from what we've seen and been through. I hope to be able to be as good an example for my future family as my parents were for me, and because of the tight bonds we've had, this sense of having a solid family is a huge thing for me.

Short-Term Goals

My first and most important goal is to make it through this semester. To accomplish this, I plan to use my professors, tutors, teaching sites, and other tools in order to prepare me as much as possible for exams coming up. If I had to connect this with one of my "Very Important" values, I'd say this showcases my sense of Responsibility.

Another goal of mine is to find a summer job. I quit my job at Chick-Fil-A almost a month ago and have not had much luck in my job hunts since then. I've written some resumes and plan to send them out over the weekend in hopes of getting some extra spending money this summer. In addition to just having spending money, I need to build up a supply of money in order to uphold my responsibilities regarding paying rent for apartment costs next year.

A goal of lesser importance would be to pick up my guitar-playing again and find something that I can do with it. I haven't been able this semester on account of being in a crowded dorm, but over this summer I want to get back into it. I know there are plenty of worship groups that are looking for guitarists, and joining one could really open up a lot of possibilities for me. At the very least, it would introduce me to new people and possibly new styles of playing music.

Long-Term Goals

I'd say my most important goal is to simply follow His will. I don't know where exactly He'll take me in life, but I'm confident that I can manage whatever I'm presented with.

My next item of importance is to build up a solid group of Christian friends that can help me throughout my walk in life. I've been attending Clemson's RUF programs and FCA in order to meet more people, but obviously I'll continue meeting people all my life. By having friends like these, I'll be able to have people keeping me accountable in all that I do.

Finally, I'd like to be able to be in a position to raise a family in the right manner. The only steps I can truly take right now involve graduating, so I plan to focus on that for now. After that, I imagine that meeting people until He nudges me towards " the one" would be my safest bet towards creating that family.

Takeaways

This was actually a really fun project, despite being slightly stressful when it came to knocking off values down to our most important five for each group. I've thought about how some of those values affect me, but others I had never really considered, and thinking about goal-setting for this portfolio has helped me see that the earlier I can plan and take action on these goals, the better.