As a man was passing the elephants,
he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being
held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was
obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but
for some reason, they did not.
He saw a trainer nearby and asked
why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,”
trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size
rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up,
they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope
can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
The man was amazed. These animals
could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they
couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.
Like the elephants, how many of us
go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply
because we failed at it once before?
Failure is part of learning; we
should never give up the struggle in life.
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