The man had driven his truck for years. It wasn’t new, and it wasn’t impressive, but it had carried him faithfully through work sites, long winters, early mornings, and late nights. The seats were worn in the places his body leaned into most. The steering wheel knew his hands. The truck had become an extension of how he moved through the world, reliable, quiet, and expected to endure.

One morning, as he pulled onto the road, a small amber light flickered on the dashboard. He glanced at it. He knew what it was. Everyone did. It was the check engine light. But the truck sounded fine. It pulled the same, there was no smoke, or strange smells. And the man was already late. He told himself what he had told himself many times before: “I’ll deal with it later.”

Later, however, never came easily. There was always something more urgent, work to finish, people counting on him, things that needed doing. And the light stayed on, quietly glowing, asking nothing more than to be noticed. After a few days, that light began annoying him. He tried restarting the truck, but the light still stayed on. He disconnected and reconnected the battery. The light came back.

Finally, one morning, he placed a small piece of black electrical tape over it. The dash went dark. The drive felt smoother immediately. There, he thought. That’s better. And for a while it was. The truck kept running. The days passed. The man felt confident. Nothing had broken. Nothing had failed. In fact, he felt a certain pride in his solution. He had silenced the distraction and kept moving.

What he could not see, because he did not want to, was that the oil pressure was slowly dropping. A seal, worn from years of strain, was beginning to leak. The damage was small, quiet, and completely invisible from the driver’s seat. Weeks later, on a long stretch of empty road, the truck shuddered. Just once, and then again. And then it stopped moving altogether. No warning light. No gradual signal. Just silence.

The man sat there, hands on the wheel, staring ahead. At first he felt confused, then angry. He kicked the tire. He cursed the truck. He cursed the timing of it all. He cursed himself for trusting something that had now abandoned him. When........

© Psychology Today