habits and mountains

Climbing a high mountain it's tempting to run on ahead, rest and run on. And if you are in the lead this seems to work. But when it gets very high the recovery time becomes inordinately long. You start getting overtaken by the tortoises who's rule of travel is 'never go faster than the pace you can keep up forever without stopping'. Climb a flight of stairs in bounds and you'll be exhausted fast. Climb it by making a single step, bringing the second foot to the same step and then making another, bringing the second foot to the same step and so on - and you'll be able to climb forever.

Habits that you can't maintain forever eventually require so much recovery time the more temperate folk begin to overtake you. If you plan on keeping going the right habit is the one you can keep going with every day of your life.

Andy Warhol said, probably flippantly, 'do everything either every day or once'. Lot of sense in that.