the.com/headwind
nature's way of reminding you that progress and difficulty often blow from the same direction
means A wind blowing directly against the direction you're traveling, slowing your progress — or, by extension, any force or circumstance working against your efforts.
from A plain compound of 'head' (the front-facing part, the direction you're pointed) and 'wind,' born from the language of sailing and seafaring, where a wind on the bow was the enemy of forward motion. English has long used 'head' to mean 'facing forward into something' — think 'headlong' or 'heading toward' — so a headwind is literally the wind you meet face-first. The figurative sense, a wind against your fortunes, drifted naturally from deck to boardroom.
- fuel cost
- adds millions in airline fuel bills yearly
- cyclist's foe
- every 1 mph costs noticeable pedaling effort
- longer flights
- westbound transatlantic trips take an hour longer
- jet stream
- winds can exceed 200 mph at altitude
- hidden ally
- planes take off and land into it
round-the-world yacht race — boats sailing westward against trade winds lose weeks compared to eastward routes
trans-atlantic flights — flights from us to europe face 100+ knot headwinds, adding 1-2 hours vs eastbound return