Life Lessons From Elephant

Hello friends! I am back with one more post in which I am going to share some Life Lessons that we can learn from Elephant. Do you know how they tame Elephants? if it is a NO, well here it is for you.

Conditioning

At the very beginning of Elephant’s childhood, I mean when it is just a calf, they confine the Elephant with Iron fetters. Initially it tries to get rid of those chains. It tries for 1 month , 2 months, 3 months but in vain. It seems to be a futile toil for that small Elephant. Finally it gets vexed and becomes tired of trying and eventually gives up. That small Elephant finally reaches to a conclusion that it could never make himself free from those chains even if it tried for it’s entire life. This misconception gets deeply rooted and profoundly inculcated into it’s mind which turns out to be a dangerous conditioning process which makes the elephant a slave for life time. And it will never try in it’s life, one more time to escape from the chains. Once they observe that the Elephant is not trying to escape then they tie the Elephant with a small rope. Now if the Elephant tries to escape, it will be an easy task for it. But the Elephant does not try to escape because it is conditioned. This conditioning is so intense and proved to be fatal in some instances for the Elephant where it did not try to escape from fire when there was a fire accident in a circus. Other animals are confined in cages, it’s obvious that they can’t escape and get burnt alive. But you know that the Elephant is confined only by a rope openly in the back yard of the Circus ground, But still the Elephant dies in that fire accident. It rather choose to get burnt alive than to try one more time.

The Message

Sounding rude is not intrinsic to me but I must say “Today a typical human being is also living like a conditioned Elephant”. Humans are being conditioned by parents, relatives, teachers and society from the very beginning of their childhood. These influencing groups, directly or indirectly pass some messages to us like, You are not strong enough, You are not mature Enough, You are not intelligent enough, You are not good enough, You are not rich enough, You can’t afford it, You have not got what it demands, You do not possess what it takes, You are not handsome, You are not beautiful, You can’t make it, This is not your cup of tea, This is not your forte, Try something else, You can’t speak English like a Pro, You don’t know how to deal with strange people and strange situations, Your dream is too big for you right now, Your ambition is too good to be true, Your Idea doesn’t sound Practical and logical,  You don’t have or can’t give what it takes, You can’t achieve it, You are not well-versed with the skills required, You are not a veteran, You are just a Tyro or a Novice or a Newbie, You are not special, You are just an other random guy from the enormous crowd which means it  is next to impossible for you to come into limelight or to get  that coveted First Break, Don’t waste your time, don’t do this, don’t do that, bla, bla, bla… and the list evolves. I tried to put all the possible dejecting statements that we find to hear more often when we opt for a big goal or to attempt a new thing which we really believed in.

Remember one thing, Someone’s opinion about you does not  have to become your reality or your destiny. They certainly can’t predict your future.  If we are giving more value to others’ opinion about us than to our inner voice, the gut feeling and giving up our dreams, it’s an indication that some where we are lacking self belief or we are under estimating our self worth which is an Omen that our reflexive belief system is not as strong as it supposed to be. those are just their opinions and they are not final, not Gospel Truths or not eternal facts.

Once Sigmund Freud said ” I have two dogs in my mind, one is positive and the other is negative “. Then somebody from the crowd asked him ” which dog generally wins? ” then Freud replied ” The one which I feed More “. I hope you got what I was trying to say. Majority of us thinks before taking any step or trying something new that what others think about us but what we fail to realize is, even the other person also has the same inhibition, he also thinks that what we think about him. So when ever you decide to do something from your gut feeling then just do it with all your might. Just jump in to the unknown waters even though you don’t know how to swim. Eventually you will learn Swimming cause that is the only option that you are left out with for your survival. Because of the vastly available Information, our generation is suffering from an ailment called “Analysis Paralysis Syndrome”. Often we fail to take action on our dreams because we are too busy and stuck in Analysis. I do agree that Analysis is also one of the important prerequisites but it should be at a proportionate extent. Too much of analysis will lead you to paralysis. So never compare yourself with others cause you have no idea what their story is all about. Just do your work, what others think about you is none of your business.

Sometimes the good intentions of our friends and parents can cause more harm than the bad intention of our enemies. Please don’t get me wrong, it is true in many cases because our parents are possessive and concerned about us. They don’t want to see us struggling and taking risks. Eventually we will be in our comfort zones. If so, we can’t learn new things and grow. We can’t become better, tougher, more mature and deserving. Which brings me to mention a point that “The biggest risk that you can take in your life is not to take any risk in your life”. No person has ever become great with out failures, condemnations, criticisms, discouragements, adversities, humiliations and dejection. Those postulates are the part and parcel of the result called “Success”. The History holds firm ground as a witness for this point. So the one who is letting the others’ voice dominate your inner voice is You. The real enemy dwells with in, the enemy out side, can do us no harm. The only person who is stopping you from success is you. So we need to cultivate a habit of thinking positive thoughts and develop a positive mental attitude. Be a man of self belief and do not pay a heed to others’ inferior opinion about you.

Memory

Elephants are known for their memory. They have a great Memory. There are instances of Elephants recognizing their owners or masters after more than 2 decades of their parting. And in one particular scenario two Elephants recognized each other after 23 years from the day they were parted after performing together in a circus.

The Message

We should memorize the lessons that our past has offered us in most blunt ways. Success comes from experience and experience comes from bad experiences. As we know the saying ” Teacher first teaches the lesson and conducts the test but Life is a strange Teacher that conducts the test first and then teaches the lesson”. We learn from our mistakes, failures, deceptions, treacheries, betrayals and bad experiences. So “Forgive your enemies but don’t Forget their names” like the Elephant. Here the sense is not about the vengeance but about the lesson that we learnt. Never forget the lesson and the Knowledge that you learned from your past. That is why they say “Do mistakes but new ones” which means Do mistakes but never repeat the same mistake.

Loyalty

The female Elephant Tests the commitment and loyalty of the male Elephant for about a year and half or two years, then only she gives a chance to male Elephant to mate with her. Elephants are gregarious animals. They live in groups of families or herds. They live in Matriarchal societies which means the oldest female leads the herd. They are very emotionally attached to their fellow elephants. If one got sick, the remaining Elephants stay with it and take good care of it. They love to play with one another using sand, water, sticks and other objects. They Conduct refreshing events when any missing friend came back to the herd, just like we humans do partying. They wrap around their trunks and gently caress the tusks just like we humans hug and pat backs. And they pay homages, perform death and burial rituals and even pay visits to those places and spend some minutes in mourning just like we humans do. In short Elephants maintain a very closely knit families.

The Message

Be loyal to your super cause, your Mission Statement or your resolution. So many people are not studious and diligent and not being dreadfully earnest and they are just dabbling in. Our Might should not be Hollow and our Fight should not be Shallow. Be extremely committed and ideally loyal to your Purpose of Life. And be an asset to your team and let your team be your Pride. Be mutually contributing and complementing each other just like the Elephants maintain closely knit groups. Cause in this new Era the Highly Influencing and Highly Successful people are nothing but the people who are associated with peak performing Teams.

Interesting Facts Of Elephants

• Elephants are the largest animals on land.
• Elephant has the longest gestation period of 22 months.
• Elephant is the only mammal that can not jump.
• Elephant’s trunk has 40,000 muscles and it can help them picking up even a needle or a blade or a nail with out struggling. They love Swimming and they use their trunk as a snorkel while they are swimming under water.
• Elephants got a great sense of smell. They can smell a water source from a distance of 10 to 12 miles and they can sense a storm or rain from a distance of 150 miles.
• Elephants possess almost equal intelligence as the Chimpanzees do. They can solve small Arithmetic problems. They are good at identifying shapes, sizes and numbers. And they are so intelligent that they use some objects in nature as instruments to get things done. And there are cases that they approached Humans for help when they are in danger, for instance when they are poisoned.
• Elephants can Sense possible threats and arrival of other animals by touching its trunk to the ground and they can make several sounds as warnings to the fellow Elephants.
• Elephants are afraid of Bees.
• Elephants do not like Ground Nuts.
• Elephants can identify genders, age groups, and language differences of humans.
• Elephant’s Tusks are nothing but it’s incisors. And they have two molars each of a size of brick.
• Elephants are one of those Mammals who have chins just like Humans.