Short stories for adults and children to make you think. From Jorge Bucay, argentinian psychotherapist and writer. If you like it and want more please leave a message and will get working on the subtitles of other stories. The story is from his book: let me tell you a story: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Let-Me-Tell-Y... If you are interested in tips on parenting and how to discipline children, watch the following playlists: Supernanny season 2 More videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL5pZ... and you can watch season 1 here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMCE0... In both playlists youll find great tricks and advice on how to parent and how to discipline children as well as tips to help with naughty kids. Transcript of the story: hen I was a child I loved the circus, and what I was more fond of were circus animals, especially the elephant, which as I later learned, was also the animal preferred by other children. During the performance, the huge beast boasted of weight, size and enormous strength... But in between performances the elephant always remained tied to a small stake with a chain imprisoning one of his legs. However, the stake was only a tiny piece of timber just buried a few inches in the ground. And while the chain was thick and powerful, it seemed obvious that an animal capable of uprooting a tree, could get easily rid of the stake and flee. The mystery still seems evident. What holds him then? Why not run? When I was five or six years, I still believed in the wisdom of the elders and I asked a teacher, a father or an uncle about the mystery of the elephant. Some of them explained that the elephant didnt escape because he was tamed. I then asked the obvious question: If he is tamed, why do they tie him?». I cant remember receiving any coherent response. Over time, I forgot about the mystery of the elephant and the stake, and only remembered it occasionally when I was with others who also had ever asked themselves the same question. Some years ago, I discovered that, luckily for me, someone had been wise enough to come up with an answer: The circus Elephant does not escape because he has been tied to a stake from a very early age. I closed my eyes and imagined the helpless newborn elephant subject to the stake. Im sure that, at the time, the elephant pushed, pulled and sweated trying to get loose. And, despite their efforts did not succeed, because that stake was too hard for him. I figured he fell asleep exhausted and the next day tried again, and the next day, and the next ... Until, one day, a terrible day for his history, the animal accepted his helplessness and resigned himself to its fate. This huge and powerful elephant we see in the circus does not escape because, poor thing, he believes that he cant . Engraved in his memory is the helplessness he felt shortly after his birth. And the worst thing is that he never seriously questioned that memory. Never, never tried to test his strength ... We are all a bit like the circus elephant: we are tied to hundreds of stakes that prevent our freedom. We live thinking that we can not do lots of things, simply because once, long ago, when we were little, we tried and failed. We then did the same as the elephant, and recorded in our memory the message: I cant, I cant and will never be able to. We grew up with that self-impossed message and we never tried to free ourselves from the stake.Short stories for adults and children to make you think. From Jorge Bucay, argentinian psychotherapist and writer. If you like it and want more please leave a message and will get working on the subtitles of other stories. The story is from his book: let me tell you a story: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Let-Me-Tell-Y... If you are interested in tips on parenting and how to discipline children, watch the following playlists: Supernanny season 2 More videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL5pZ... and you can watch season 1 here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMCE0... In both playlists youll find great tricks and advice on how to parent and how to discipline children as well as tips to help with naughty kids. Transcript of the story: hen I was a child I loved the circus, and what I was more fond of were circus animals, especially the elephant, which as I later learned, was also the animal preferred by other children. During the performance, the huge beast boasted of weight, size and enormous strength... But in between performances the elephant always remained tied to a small stake with a chain imprisoning one of his legs. However, the stake was only a tiny piece of timber just buried a few inches in the ground. And while the chain was thick and powerful, it seemed obvious that an animal capable of uprooting a tree, could get easily rid of the stake and flee. The mystery still seems evident. What holds him then? Why not run? When I was five or six years, I

• published: 02 Mar 2014
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