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.
The Mental Ropes We Allow In Our Lives
How many mental “ropes” do you have binding your thoughts, dreams and goals? What things from your past do you still allow to hold you back?
If a rope was tied to a friend’s leg keeping him/her from stepping forward, you would tell them to cut it off. But what about when it’s on our own foot? Have you given up and accepted the rope as part of who you are? Sometimes the things holding us back seems like thick cables but it is simply a weak thread.
What holds us back most in life is not the obstacles that cross our paths, but the fact that we do not believe in our selves. The threads that are tight around our legs may be made of harsh words, shame, guilt, failure and many other negative things.
Things happen, but we survive! What we went through should not be ignored, but we should not let it define us, or let it hold us back. We should put it behind us and BELIEVE that we CAN move forward. We can break lose!
Some of us may even start to become comfortable with the ‘ropes’ around our legs. Not even tugging at it anymore. We give in to the mundane every day life and forgetting what we are capable off. We forget to push and live our life to the fullest!
As days pass, we grow, and gain strength sometimes without realizing it, But because we have ”accepted” how things are we do not even realize we can break free. A full grown elephant can rip an entire tree trunk out of the ground if it tried, let alone break that tiny little rope.
What if our ropes are just as easy to break in reality?
Just like the growing elephant, we LEARN how to adapt to our surroundings or to live within them. We can also unlearn and explore possibilities we never considered before or didn’t think were worth the time to try. There may be a rope around you, but what you chose to BELIEVE today about that rope is what matters.
Whatever you can conceive and believe, you can achieve!
Unknown
CHOOSE not to accept the false boundaries and limitations created by the past.
I recently read this inspirational story on the internet and wanted to share if with some of my FLAWESOME BONESCHANS followers.
This story is written by A.M. Marcus and I share a LINK
Flawsome Boneschans 