Hiralious

There is a story about the silly elephant who had a slave mindset and considering himself chained to a post, he never tried to go for a walk or explore the freedom. The chain around his legs was not tied to any post and he was free.

This story is meant to impart a warning against inertia in our daily lives. Sometimes we just assume that something is a particular way without actually testing the limits or trying to know the truth.

However in defence of the elephant, having had a history of knowing that having a chain on your legs means imprisonment and immobility , not testing the assumption everyday is explainable because he is saving his cognitive resource which would be drained if he did the same thing over and over again. In fact learning lessons quickly is a form of intelligence.

 What proverbs, stories or any advice fall short of always, is an attention to the other side of the story. An important question arises here, what is the sweet spot for the elephant where he is curious and proactive enough to test his conditions in case they may have changed, and him exhausting himself doing the same thing over and over.

In life no matter what advice is imparted to us, it is based on the context in which we are suffering. If you are a procrastinator, the advice that applies to you is that don't put until tomorrow what you can do today. If you are a type A personality who gets stressed about doing things as soon as possible,  the warning imparted to you is that haste makes waste. These are both contradictory lessons, and they are not absolute truths as is. I feel that advices and lessons serve to bring us from extreme of one behavior to a reasonable degree of that behavior, and the fact that the other extememe exists as well is important. It must not serve to dilute the effect of self correction, as you may be inclined to think that what is the point of following one advice when completely other advice exists.

The other advice exists for the other extreme. Of all the clichés, that I find true, life is indeed a balancing act between extremes of your behaviors.

The elephant was not stupid, it was just too inert.  The opposite of this would be a neurotic and obsessed elephant yanking his chains all day and not settling for the circumstances.

Like the elephant, we all have to find our sweet spots between extremes of behavior.