The answer? Raised in captivity, the elephants are held like that from an early age when they're much smaller and weaker. They get so accustomed to the fact that they can't break the rope that eventually they stop trying. When they're full grown, they never attempt to pull themselves free.
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. Have you avoided trying something new because of a limiting belief? Worse, how many of us are being held back by someone else's limiting beliefs?
Don't let yourself be held prisoner by beliefs and expectations that are no longer true -- if they ever were.
From "The Howe Herald." Adapted from "Why Elephants Don't Run," by Jim Donovan. Reprinted from Grace Drops, Volume 3 (2005).