Melville Cooke

I cannot remember which book I read it in, the general story, the names of the characters, human or metal, but I cannot forget the impact of knowing how long it takes a ship to stop, made on me.

It was, of course, one of those war books that fill young boys' imaginations with tall tales of their own heroism and the lovely ladies, who lean forward to examine scars of great daring and their lips just happen to be positioned for an easy bullseye.

But, while those notions of bloody grandeur have long faded to the real life, but oh so rewarding grind of being a hero to one's children every day, the length of time it takes to stop a ship has stuck with me. In the book, a warship was at full speed ahead (not 'foolspeedahead' as signage on sections of the toll road says) and the captain needed to stop in order to conceal the wake from marauding enemy fighter planes.

It was not simply a matter of cutting engine speed and almost immediately coming to a stop, though, as it took nearly three nautical miles and 10 minutes for the ship to stop making headway after the engines were stopped. The figure may have been part of fiction designed to help spur along the mental 'oohs' and 'aahs' (and it worked), but certainly stopping a ship is not the same as hitting the brakes and bringing a motor vehicle to a complete halt on land.

However, especially at this time of year when we tend to make resolutions to change personal behaviour that we do not like, we treat our lives as cars that are undergoing braking tests, demanding of ourselves that we stop ingrained habits in an instant and being somewhat surprised when we do not see instantaneous results. But, we are much more like captains at the helms of our lives, rather than an examiner at the depot testing a car's brakes.

Human tendency

And, the human tendency to sustain momentum in the current direction is much stronger than a ship's, with life providing much less friction than the water under a ship's hull.

It would do us well to remember this as we make our inevitable New Year's resolutions, which quite likely are repeats of last year's or the year before. We should not set up ourselves for perceived failure by setting impossible targets and expecting to make dark tyre marks in our personal history as we put on the brakes.

Similarly, we should not expect to start off in a new direction we wish to pursue, much as a sports car's tyres grip the tarmac and propel the vehicle forward as the driver sinks the accelerator. It is much more a case of getting under way like a huge container ship, slowly as screws bite (no pun intended) the water and the inertia, the tendency to stay at rest, is slowly, but surely overcome.

But, once moved in the right direction, it is hard to stop.

And, we also need to apply these principles to our goals as a country. St. James had eight triple murders for the year up to earlier this month; it would be unreasonable to expect that next year there will be none. It would be unreasonable to expect that the exchange rate to the U.S. dollar would miraculously stop or even reverse; it would be lunacy to demand that the much vaunted productivity will expand at the snap of a finger.

Have a happy New Year, naturally, but understanding how hard it is to stop a huge ship as well as to get it going should make us more patient in how we captain our lives, resolutions and resolve or not.

Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.