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One Foot on the Brake..!
By Robert Clements. Dated: 6/26/2019 12:52:50 AM
Many years ago when most cars on our roads were small, I bought myself a huge car. It was enormously long and when I passed a showroom with a glass window, marveled to see the length of it.
"But it's a slow car!" said my envious friends.
"Its not!" I would reply revving up the powerful engine and frightening everyone with its monstrous roar.
One summer I took the family for a holiday to a nearby hill station and the next day very early in the morning decided to take my wife for a drive. We drove with windows down enjoying the pleasant mountain air and maybe it was that agreeable whiff which made me turn good- naturedly to her and ask, "You want to drive?"
"It's too big!" she said settling herself farther down in her seat and smiling.
"It's got the same gear system as your little car!" I said, a little irritably.
"But isn't as fast!" she said condescendingly.
"Drive and see!" I chuckled as I stopped the car, put the hand brakes on and walked over to the passenger seat while she climbed into mine.
I watched as she put car in gear and then gazed puzzled as she strained to get it going. "Press the accelerator!" I screamed.
"What?" she asked above the roar of a full throttled engine.
"Press the accelerator!" I shouted again.
"I am!" she said and slowly I felt the car move.
It chugged along like steam engine on steep mountain climb and early morning strollers walked besides the car encouraging my wife on, thinking she was a beginner, which only made her more mad.
"It's a slow car Bob!" she said angrily, "a very slow car!"
"It isn't," I said, but not very loud this time as I watched my wife struggle to attain speed, "Maybe," I thought to myself, "I had more muscle in my calves than most others and that's why no difficulty with speed!" I gingerly felt my legs but hardly felt muscle.
"Wait!" I shouted suddenly, "You've forgotten to release the handbrake!"
We've not stopped laughing over that eventful drive and remember how the car leaped forward like a wild horse; cutting into the mountain slope. I remember the startled looks of bystanders as with a roar of delight the huge machine hurtled past them.
"What a car!" said my wife, "How I drove into the wind, free and unfettered!
"As soon as you got the brakes off!" I laughed.
I remembered what Mary Manin Morrissey who spoke before the United Nations had to say some years ago: "Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brake. In order to be free, you must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life!"
What is it you would let go off today?
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