Elephant's Story - Conditioning our Mind

A boy was curious to see the elephants were being held by only a small rope tied to their leg. He was surprised that such a huge animal was held captive using such small ropes that can be easily be broken by the elephants. He thought why the elephants are not breaking away from it. 

He asked the mahout:

"Why are you not using strong chains or cages to hold the elephants? They could easily break the rope and get away. Why are they not even trying to escape?"

Smiling, the mahout replied.

"Well, when they were young we used these same ropes to tie them to a tree. Then they were small and the rope could easily hold them. At that time, they had tried multiple times to break loose, but they could not break the rope. After trying so many times, they had realised that they cannot break the rope or escape. When they grew up, they were conditioned in such a way that they believed they could never break the rope and get away. So they never even try!"

The boy was shocked. He could not believe that the elephants never try to break the rope just because they believed they could not!

“Possunt quia posse videntur.”  

This Latin motto means: "They can, because they think they can."

Like the elephants in the story, we may also believe that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before.  We may avoid trying something new because of such conditioning with which we grew up. We are even affected by such negative thoughts of others.