The Elephant in the Circus. Introduction ¶ This is a story that has become an Internet meme, and that search engines are unable to find a definitive source of.
So I’m writing it here for posterity. The Story of the Elephant in the Circus ¶ I once went to a circus and saw a huge elephant tied to a small pole with a rope, just standing there. So I wondered why is the elephant so obedient and doesn’t break away from the stick with all of its enormous strength and mass. Later on, when it was older, the elephant still believed it could not escape from the rope, and remained standing in the same place, despite the fact it could then easily escape. Now, we humans often have various tasks that we tried to do when we were younger and failed, and still believe that we are unable to do. Licence ¶ The story is not original, but the text is. I don’t know who originated the original story, which I received by E-mail once (in Hebrew), but I’d appreciate any insights or leads for its source.
The Elephant and the Chain – What’s Holding You Back? « Better Life Coaching Blog. When an elephant is young, if a trainer puts a chain around its leg and restrains it from moving far, the young elephant will initially try to escape.
After trying for a while, the animal realises that escaping is futile and gives in to the restraint, enabling the trainer to control the elephant for the rest of its life. From then on, all that is required is a chain around its leg and a wooden peg in the ground that you or I could pull out, but the elephant doesn’t. Why? Why Do I Do What I DON'T Want to Do? I was looking through some pictures earlier for my new website and came across a shot of an elephant’s leg chained to a stake.
I heard long ago that when elephants are young the masters chain them to stakes to keep them from running off. However when they get older they remove the chain but the elephant doesn’t run off. The elephant doesn’t run off because it can’t but because it doesn’t think that it can. That applies to us humans too, so often we hold onto perceived chains that were put there by our parents, teachers, our own self talk, etc. Even after we begin a life of recovery, we have been saved and redeemed by Christ we hold on to our chain. Tagged as: bondage, broken, Christ, recovery. Training Circus Elephants.
Blind Men & the ElephantWe are the Doggies that never give up!
Encouragement I found the following passage in a book written by Gavin de Becker in 1997 entitled: "The Gift of Fear, Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence," Boston: Little Brown (pages 228-9). It essentially explains the dynamics of learned helplessness. "The way circus elephants are trained demonstrates this dynamic well: When young, they are attached by heavy chains to large stakes driven deep into the ground. They pull and yank and strain and struggle, but the chain is too strong, the stake too rooted. "Unless and until something changes their view, unless they grasp the striking fact that they are tied with a thread, that the chain is an illusion, that they were fooled, and ultimately, that whoever so fooled them was wrong about them and that they were wrong about themselves-- unless all this happens, these children are not likely to show society their positive attributes as adults.
" Are you like an elephant with string around your leg? Guest article By Peter Carruthers In Burma elephants are used for lugging trees about.
(Modern business folk would call this "forestry operations".) Unlike modern mechanized equipment, it takes time to grow an elephant, as well as time to train it. This is not as easy as it seems, because infant elephants have a nasty habit of wandering away. (A little bit like leaving your handbrake off when parking your car at the top of the hill.) As soon as the baby elephant can walk (a few minutes after it is born), they secure it to a stake with a thin piece of rope -- barely more than a piece of string. Once this elephant has given up trying to free itself -- it never tries again. Whenever I see somebody who is employed (rather than somebody who is self-employed, or who owns a business) I think about that piece of string. When last did you try and rethink your life, and tug hard on that piece of floss tethering you to the pebble sunk in your own lake of daily brown stuff?
AC/DC - Thunderstruck Lyrics.