The next time you grab a bottle, look at where you have taken hold of it. It is probably the skinny bit at the top called the neck – hence the bottle neck. At first glance, it looks like the neck has been made skinny so that you can wrap your hands around it.

But start pouring out its contents and you will realise that the neck does perform another important function. It is to limit the fluid flow so that the discharge can be controlled.

Last Sunday, after a few unsuccessful attacks, 3 riders made it off in front of the rest of us. There was a red jersey and a yellow/black amongst them. Quickly, a good number of red jerseys took up positions at the front of the peloton and I joined them. I knew that Brian was up the road and he had a chance of staying away and winning. It is not often that a Waratah wins or podiums in A grade nowadays – and Brian stood a good chance of breaking the drought.

A controlled ‘block’ means having team mates near the front with the serious chasers. The team mates roll through after the chasers have done a hard pull – but they don’t pull hard. Just a soft turn. This slows down the momentum of the chase and creates a bottleneck at the front. The break stayed away and Brian got a second place. Go Waratah!

Look around and bottlenecks are everywhere. Traffic is a good example. Cash flow prevents a lot of people from spending big. The elections slow down business and development. And the NBN will solve the bandwidth bottleneck.

Elsewhere in our lives, we realise that multi tasking burns us out whilst a simple single track task like gardening soothes the pressures of life. We did not learn the 26 letters of the alphabet all at once, nor did we graduate from high school in a matter of days. Everything in our lives is ‘drip fed’ to us in a controlled manner.

Bottlenecks are important because it allows us to grab hold of our life (just like the bottle) with our current capacity. As your hands get bigger, the bottleneck will open wider. So, if you are wondering why there are so many narrow bottlenecks in your life, take heart that it is there to save you. They are there to prevent you from drowning.

Most of us can drink a bottle – but there are only a few who can drink an ocean.