So summer has officially started... School’s done and it’s time to relax, whether that be through outings with friends or becoming the couch potato you long to become all year round.  Summer also tends to commence the fight for that “bikini body” yet again.  In fact, summer diets have become one of the most common summer missions shared amongst teenagers... Me included. 

However, recently I’ve been thinking that maybe the reason I aspire to lose the most weight during the summer holidays is because I always need to have something to aspire to.  (Case in point:  I had two weeks off when my exams were over, before school restarted in May/June, and during this time I figured out my University preferences and started this blog).  The more that I’ve thought about it, the more things make sense.  I spend the whole school year working towards final exams; this year it was AS exams, last year it was my GCSE’s, and the moment that they’re over I claim that I’m going to relax, but I always find something else to work on, a “new project”, if you will. 

This same principle can loosely be applied to the way that we live our lives, or at least the way that society teaches we should live our lives.  Think about it.  The general structure of our lives consists of:

• Nursery, so we learn the basics for...
• Primary School, so we can get into...
• Secondary school, where we study for...
• GCSE’s, so we know the basics for...
• AS Levels, which count for 50% of our...
• A2’s, which we need in order to get into...
• University, so that we can get a good...
• Job, so that we can pay to live comfortably, until...
• Retirement.

And yes, I know that life’s not that simple and that the structure varies from person to person, but that’s a stripped down version to illustrate my point.  We are always working for something.  Basically everything that we do, we do because we’re striving to achieve a goal... and after we’ve achieved it, we move on to the next one.

It’s like Aristotle discussed with his four causes.  Long story short, he believed that everything on earth could be explained with four questions, or “causes”: what materials it was made of, how those materials were put together, who made it, and why it was made, (Its purpose).  That last one is what he called the “Final Cause”, which basically led Aristotle to the conclusion that everything is designed to work towards a specific purpose/aim/end goal.  What if Aristotle is right?  We could all be bouncing from goal to goal to goal until we find that final one to work towards...  That all-important “Final Cause”.  Whether you agree with that conclusion or not, you must agree that regardless of whether we realise at the time, we are always working towards something.

I barely know what my current goal is, or what my next 10 goals will be, because these things aren’t always planned.  Sometimes it’s like our subconscious is driving us to work towards something whether we realise it or not.  So, whether you know your current goal, or are just going with the flow that’s leading you there, good luck in achieving it this summer (and in life in general!).