Rest Day

I read a lot; and because my area of study is history, much of this reading focuses on authors and issues long since past their time. However, I often come across literature that appears timeless in its style, relevance, and multi-dimensional applicability to the present. Even when the subject of their texts has a focus far from physical conditioning, many of these authors strike personal chords and raise interesting questions that I inevitably relate to training.

So, since rest days are for recovery and regeneration, I've decided to begin using them as a forum to raise such issues and cite the outwardly "unrelated" historical passage that brought them to my attention. Hopefully people will contribute their insights on the topic, if they have them, and how it relates to their training.

Issue: Setting goals vs Achieving them

Historical Quote to Ponder:

“What is the price-current of an honest man and a patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.”

—Henry David Thoreau, 1849