Cedric was the last born of a family of five children; three boys and two girls. His father was a very wealthy man with business ventures spanning across the country. He had several cars in his garage most of them top of the range models. He loved his “toys”, as he loved to call them. He was very strict when it came to allowing any of his children to drive any one of his cars.
You first had to complete your college education and work for a whole year. Cedric had cleared his secondary school but he knew there were still four years before he could ever think about sitting behind the wheel of a car. He hated the fact that he had to ask either his father or one of his siblings to drive him any time he wanted to go anywhere. It made matters worse to see most of his age mates were being allowed to drive their parents’ cars.
This kept annoying him and so he decided to go around his dad’s strict rules. He had a very close relationship with Sally his older sister so every time he wanted to go anywhere, he would insist she drive him there. With time, he started pestering her to teach him to drive. He was very observant so he theoretically knew how to drive but practically, he was still way off the mark. When his sister wouldn’t budge, he decided to pull off another trick. His sister had a habit of leaving the key in the car whenever she was with Cedric. One day she did the usual thing but this time her errand took too long. Cedric’s curiosity got the better of him and so he slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. He engaged the gear but much as he accelerated, the car would not move. He was so engrossed in his attempts he didn’t even noticed his sister had returned. His sister, after a few seconds, burst out laughing jolting him back to reality. She knew that he was a cheeky person and already knew what he was attempting to do and why be had not succeeded. She calmly explained to him that when a car is parked, you raise the hand break lever to stop the car rolling backward or forward depending on the gradient and that it’s a must that you push it down when you want the car to move. Cedric was sad because he had not succeeded in his attempt although at least he’d learnt something.
Almost all of us have a Cedric trait in us. We all want to make progress in our studies, business, relationships or our social life but there are things we need to do that we don’t do or things we are not supposed to do, yet we are doing them. It might be a habit we need to stop, or an association we need to break. It might be some past experiences that we are yet to deal with and every time we try to take a step forward, they tag on us like briares. It might a business venture that failed, a relationship that broke, a promise that was never kept. These and many more, are like hand breaks in a car and until we deal with them, they will always impede our progress in whatever endeavour we set out to do. My simple question is this: Have you identified your hand break. To read more posts by Mwangi, click HERE
