I heard a pretty awesome analogy today that really got me thinking. Being a first year University student, I feel like a kid who hasn’t yet learnt how to swim alone and has been shoved in the deep end of the pool (without any floaty might I add). I don’t know about you but that image of a kid struggling to float in the deep end isn’t comforting in my mind. I’ve always felt like I needed a clearly defined goal that i would spend my life trying to attain. You grow up and see that it isn’t like that. Sometimes you’re just stuck in this confusing state where you can’t seem to formulate proper goals to define your life and what you’re doing with it. What I’ve come to realise is that you’re sole purpose in life isn’t to have these definite goals that you aim to achieve. Rather, what I find to be the crucial part of life is that we keep moving forward. Remaining stagnant is the most destructive act ( or rather non-act).

I know you’re all dying to hear the analogy. Imagine you’re on a bicycle with both feet off the ground. If you’re not moving you’re simply going to fall off. The rebutting argument would be that moving back means we do not fall either however, although the desire is to continue to move forward, sometimes we need to move back so that we’re provided with impetus to continue on forward. You need those moments in your life where you feel like you’ve moved 10 steps back so that you’re encouraged to change whatever you need to move on.

If I take the analogy beyond it’s obvious connotations I see that sometimes life hands us challenging obstacles that immobilize us. You’re riding along on this bike, when suddenly a tire pops and you fall to the ground. Now that wasn’t your fault. But you either remain on the ground crying about what happened or you get up and drag the bike along as you journey on forwards.

This may just be the most overtly philosophical blog post yet (Excccccittttting).