Before you tell me you have too much to do, let me tell you a story.
Years ago, I was finishing my senior year and my college basketball career at Shenandoah University in Virginia. Final exams. Graduation. Packing up four years of memories and getting ready to move back to South Carolina. I was excited, nervous, and unsure of what came next.
Then my Acura Integra broke down.
Great! Just great! Kenny is getting angry!
I called my dad, seven hours away. He suspected the radiator and told me to check the price at AutoZone. About $109. Then he sent me to a mechanic for an installation quote.
A few hours later, I went back to the shop.
“Your car’s ready. That’ll be about $600.”
Six hundred dollars?!
I called Dad.
“Wait,” he said. “They already put it in?”
Apparently, yes—before I had even approved the work.
“Put him on the phone.”
Family, I don’t know what my daddy said to that man. But when I got the phone back, the mechanic looked at me like I had personally ruined his entire week.
He took the new radiator out, put the old one back, and sent me on my way. Funny how a job that took two hours to do could be undone in about ten minutes.
Back at school, Dad told me to replace it myself.
“Daddy, you sure you can’t come?”
“Kenny, you can do this.”
I looked up the instructions online. Difficulty: moderate. Estimated time: 45 minutes.
Forty-five minutes? Shoot, I’ve got this.
Forty-five minutes later, I had unplugged, loosened, unscrewed, and removed all kinds of things—except the radiator.
The radiator was still sitting there, looking at me.
I called Dad again, talking fast, frustrated, ready to quit. I was almost a college graduate. I went to school to use my brain, not to become an employee at Jiffy Lube.
Dad let me finish.
Then he said, “Kenny, go take a ten-minute break. Come back and try again.”
Ten minutes.
I took an hour-long nap.
And when I woke up, something had changed.
Not the car. That thing was still broken.
But I was calmer. I could think. I went back outside, worked through the instructions, and eventually got that radiator replaced.
By myself.
I called Dad, proud as I could be.
“See?” he said. “I knew you could do it.”
I’ve been thinking about that conversation lately.
Everywhere I turn, I keep hearing some version of the same message: Be still. Be patient. Slow down.
Funny how nature starts settling down this time of year, while we somehow get busier. More errands. More obligations. More rushing. More hollering, “Move, blankety-blank!” at the driver ahead of us. I don’t cuss, so y’all can fill in the blanks.
And I’ve done worse. I once rear-ended somebody while the song “Drive Slow” was playing.
The radio tried to tell me.
Sometimes we’re moving so fast that we miss what’s right in front of us. A sunset. Somebody standing in the cold when we have an extra coat. A friend who needs us to listen. The answer we’ve been trying to force.
Being still isn’t the same as giving up.
Sometimes it’s how you get going again.
So if life has you frustrated, overwhelmed, or stuck, take a break. Step outside. Breathe. Sit quietly.
Or do what I did.
Go take a nap.
The radiator will still be there when you wake up.
Kenny Robertson, an educator and comedian, is a native of Ridgeway.