I don’t think I learnt anything from my high school education. To me it’s just one huge blur. Someone said, Education is what you remember after you’ve forgotten everything you learnt. This someone makes some of us just wish we would have given up of the whole education thing and pursued a career as a sheep herder. (David was a sheep herder, and he turned out alright). The experiences though, those are priceless. 

This one time Mr Muturi, my Physics teacher walks into our lab session. That was a surprise. He had this thing where he would come for only one class every two week, and never, never the double physics lab class. He was also drunk. Well, the English man did say, better half a loaf. So we gathered round for a high impact knowledge gathering lesson. He got into the lab technicians office only to come back twenty minutes later. I always thought, the lab technician’s office had some sort of a vanishing cabinet; no teacher ever went in and come back at least fifteen minutes later. There stood Mr Muturi, with a block of wood a string and a spring like instrument with a hook. He asked to gather around, as he was going to do an experiment. We all burst out laughing. Four years of physics and no one had ever seen this man’s experiments work. None. 

Ten minutes of setup, trying to tie the string on the block, with his shaking hands and we were ready. He hooked the string instrument on the block along the string tied around it, and pulled the block towards himself using the other end of this spring. Alas! Something didn’t work. After a few attempts, no success, he had to get smart. So he shook his hand, the gauge on the pulling spring thing moved and just like that he finished his experiment. 

So glad with himself, Mr Muturi went on, for the next ten minutes, to explain what he was desperately trying to show us. Basically, his ill performed experiment was meant to show us, it would take more effort to get the block of wood moving, than it would take to keep the block moving. That is to say, potential energy, energy used to get a system in motion, is higher than kinetic energy, the energy used to keep the system in motion. Now, at the back of my head I was there thinking, he would have just said that at the beginning of the class, and given up double PE there after instead.

Such a basic concept. So trivial. Yet so apparent in our lives. How hard it is to get something started. The intentions are always there. But on first attempt, second even sometimes third, we give up cause we just cannot get the energy needed to get moving. From our resolutions to goals that we set for ourselves to achieve, the first two steps are always the hardest. In the words of Steven Furtick, its only hard till it’s a habit. You only need to get in motion.