Perceived Limitations
Thwap-OUCH-thud… Thwap-OUCH-thud…Thwap-OUCH-thud…”
Fred, the flea, was trapped. Not in the fur of a dog or a cat. No. Fred was trapped in a jar with a tightly sealed lid.
(((((”Thwap-OUCH-thud… thwap-OUCH-thud…”)))))
…was all you heard as he jumped, hit the lid and fell flat on his face. Fred didn’t like being imprisoned so he’d pick himself back up, dust off and jumped even harder this time…
Over and over and over again!
Soon Fred learned that smacking his head into the lid hurt really bad. So he taught himself to stop jumping with so much force. His head still hit the lid, but now it hurt less. Then the thought hit Fred like a bolt of lightening, “Eureka! If I don’t touch the lid at all, it won’t hurt at all.”
Less than 3 jumps later, he trained himself not to hit the lid. No more pain.
But Fred still wanted his freedom, so he continued to jump but only has high as the lid. Then something amazing happened…
Dumb Luck
Now pay close attention because here comes the really shocking part:
See, Fred’s captors removed the lid from the jar and what do you think happened? Fred seized his opportunity to escape and immediately jumped out, right?
WRONG!
He did continue to jump… but only as high as the lid once was because he “knew” to jump higher would cause him great pain.
So Fred, perfectly capable of escaping in a snap, stayed trapped in a prison that only existed in his mind because he convinced himself that jumping higher equals pain. Know what? As long as he kept that false belief, for him it WAS impossible.
But not because the opportunity wasn’t available to him… only because he trained himself so well to never jump any higher that he tricked himself into believing it was the best he could ever do. So while he continued to try and jump out, because he had been conditioned over time to only jump so high, he hoped for a miracle and ended up dying in the jar held captive by the perceive limitations of the lid that he decided was holding him there.