Length or breadth?

Swimming is in my daily to-do-list these days. It is fun-fitness-f(ph?)ilospohy, all in one package for me. For me, hardly there is any other exercise which is so much of fun-filled and calorie killer at the same time.

Apart from the fun and fitness part of it, I have learnt couple of more things there, probably you may call it philosophical ones. One of them is worth sharing.

Initially I used to swim along the length of the pool. The pool is pretty long enough. One lapse lengthwise used to stress me out. After that I used to think that I'm very tired and need some rest. Also I used to flatter myself, "Nice bro, you have swam a lot". This flattering of myself effectively led to less distance of swimming but more tasalli (Hindi word implying satisfaction).

But for last couple of days, I have started lapses along the breadth of the pool, which is around half of the length. So when I complete my one lapse breadth-wise, I always think that I haven't swam enough as this is just the breadth. And I keep on swimming more and more. The result is, my work out level has increased a lot and surprisingly the distance covered is much more than that in earlier case.

This length vs. breadth matrix taught me very important lesson. It is that, set your vision of ultimate aim but in the journey set your short term objectives as well. These short term objectives will keep you motivated, will keep you reminding that you have miles to go and at the same time won't allow you to flatter yourself and will never lead to complacency.