This is a guest post written by a law school student under the pen name Vicki P.

There is a popular expression that all women eventually have to choose between their ass and their face.

As I creep dangerously close to my 30s, this has certainly rung true! You can’t have a tiny tuchus without ending up with a bony face and vice versa. But as I was filling out my to-do list today—one that was too long to even fit in my daily planner—I started thinking about how this is applicable to more things than just my body.

My to-do list for the day included about 18 hours worth of work: two articles to review for a University Journal that I edit; a canned food drive; a Junior League meeting; three classes; a report for work; looming deadlines for the two different scholarly articles I am writing (i.e., these 45 page monsters!); meetings; and I can’t forget to send my resume to the gentleman I met yesterday who has a job that I very much want. In addition to work, school, and community service, I want to celebrate with my good friend who got engaged yesterday. I don’t want to miss the swing dance lessons that I’ve been taking with my boyfriend. I want to call my friend who I have not spoken to in over two weeks. I don’t want to miss out on restaurant week. I want to do it all.

Something has to give.

There is a fine line between being well-rounded and stretched too thin. And while you may be able to pull it off for a while, there will come a point where you can no longer have both a great ass and a great face. It’s just not possible.

Of course, that story is a deceased horse that has been sufficiently beaten. And the point of this blog entry is not about the fact that we can’t have it all. That problem really isn’t unique to women although sometimes I think we tend to claim it as our own. The point of this entry is that you have to choose. And you need to know why you are making certain choices and then be happy with them. Of course those choices come with certain societal pressures and often frustrating outcomes.

Priorities

Although it is a constant battle, I made my choice several years ago. After seeing a good friend’s marriage slowly fall apart because both spouses were married to their job, I promised myself that I would always prioritize my relationships over my career. And for the most part, I have remained faithful to that promise. This does not mean I am all play and no work, but that I value the “play” in my life and work pretty hard to make sure it happens. I went swing dancing with my boyfriend last night even though I have deadlines the size of Mount Rushmore resting on my shoulders. Despite having a day full of meetings, I still set aside time to have a cupcake break with a good friend. And last week, even though I was up at 6am for work and then busted my tail non-stop until about 8:00 at night, I set aside time for a movie night with the boyfriend. And all of those decisions mean that I let some aspect of my work suffer over some aspect of a personal relationship.

And of course that choice has consequences. I won’t graduate at the top of my class (although, admittedly, that probably would not have happened regardless of my priorities), I will never be a CEO, and I will be fighting constantly to assert where my priorities lie. Making such choices also has another consequence—I must respect the choices that others make if I want them to respect mine. For example, (and I want to preface this with the fact that my boyfriend really is a great guy and has apologized for hurting my feelings), last week, as I wrote above, I made plans to watch a movie with my boyfriend. I worked really hard during the day to get everything done in time to see him. But then he never showed. He fell asleep and when I called him, he told me he was too tired to come over. Priorities.

Taking It Personal?

But while I was mad at him for standing me up, I do not know if I can necessarily be mad at him for how he has chosen to prioritize his life. That is the thing—we all have to decide what is most important to us and then live with those consequences, both the good and the bad. Being one to lean a little left politically, I often throw around the clichéd “uneven playing field” argument, so the one thing I especially appreciate about time is that everyone has the same amount of it. So when people say they are too busy for something, what they really mean is that it is not a priority. Maybe they want to do something, but ultimately, we all choose how we spend our waking hours.

And going back to the article Blake posted about women as CEOs, I know my choices mean I will never become one. And I am okay with that. But that does not mean that choice does not come with a lot of societal pressure. I have been fortunate to go to one of the top law schools in the country and the best in my state. So when I express to women that what would really make me happy is to marry and have children, they look at me as if I am a fool. Why would I waste my education? All that hard work? All that money wasted! I must be desperate. “Look at your boyfriend, he isn’t making that choice, so why should you?” they ask.

The Happiness Conundrum

And as women, I think we often make that argument. That it isn’t fair that women have the dual responsibility of family and work. I agree that that argument has merits. And I do not have children, so I will not expose my naivety by even beginning to try to address what that choice must feel like. But what I do want to address, and it is something that I think is often ignored, is that men make those choices, too. They, too, have to choose how they prioritize their time. They, too, face social pressures to prioritize certain area over others. We all are working with the same 24 hours.

And that is where I think we need to change the dialogue. I often find myself letting others dictate what should be my priorities. I allow myself to feel guilty about certain decisions I make regarding the allocation of my time. And I imagine I am not alone. And I suppose across different social circles, those pressures shift in one way or another, but the bottom line is that we are letting others tell us what should make us happy. But one of my favorite things about the true feminist movement is that it is all about choice.  You can choose to be a CEO. You can choose to be a stay-at-home mom. You can choose to be a working mom. You can choose to have no children at all, but still make personal relationships a priority. You can choose the life you want to live. Of course, going full circle, you cannot choose, at least not successfully, all of the above. That is where you ultimately have to decide what is most important to you. What will make you happiest?

Choose to be happy.