Are You Acting Like an Elephant? Better Not!

Dear loving people,

Here is a lovely quote from Chris Burke “...Obstacles are what you see when you take your eye off the goal. Giving up is not my style. I just want to do something that's worthwhile.”

Once you have resolved to make life better for your loved ones and yourself, it becomes imperative to remain persistent and never give up, no matter how many failures you have experienced in the past. Moving forward becomes the only other way.

A tourist was spending his holiday in Waza Park in Northern Cameroon. One day he watched the elephants passing by. To his greatest surprise, these giant strong animals were being held only by a small rope, tied to their front leg. Obviously, they could easily run away any moment. However, they did not.

Then he saw a trainer and asked him, how could this happen that not a single elephant makes an attempt to break free. The trainer explained: “When the elephants are very young, we use the same size rope to tie them, and at that time it is enough to hold them. Gradually they grow up, get stronger, nevertheless they never try to get away, as they believe that the rope will still hold them.”

The tourist was stunned. These strong animals could break free any time, but they did not, because they believed that this is impossible.  Sometimes people act like elephants, when they give up after the first failure. Think of the number of times you or your friends have given up on major projects, dream because they met with a few challenging obstacles? Remember, that failures are part of learning. If we want to succeed, we should never give up, but try and try and try again.

It is absolutely important to register this at the center of your mind, if you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived. As we live our day-to-day life, we tend to forget this very important message. We end up thinking that everyone that succeeds has had nothing but luck all their life and that they had it easy. Who can blame us too, I mean by the time we hear about someone making it big, the focus is on the success, not on the long hard struggle to get there.

Every single story of resounding success, has within it elements of dismal failures at different stages along the path. The difference you must make is to develop the capacity to transform your failures into stepping stones to your eventual success.