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.