THE ELEPHANT AND ROPE....
(Najamuddin Ghanghro, Karachi (Original from Larkana))
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.