During a research experiment, a marine biologist placed a shark in a large holding tank and then released several small bait fish into the tank. As you would expect, the shark quickly swam around the tank, ate the smaller fish. The biologist then inserted a strong piece of clear fiberglass into the tank as a partition, creating two separate areas. She put the shark in one and put bait in the other.
Again, the shark quickly attacked. This time, however, it only slammed into the divider. Undeterred, it kept trying every few minutes but to no avail. Eventually, about an hour into the experiment, the shark gave up.
This experiment was repeated dozens of times over the next few weeks. Progressively the shark got less aggressive and made fewer attempts to attack, and eventually got tired and simply stopped attacking.
The biologist then removed the divider, but the shark didn’t attack. It had become conditioned to believe a barrier existed between it and the bait fish, so the bait fish swam wherever they wished, free from harm.
Many of us, after experiencing setbacks and failures, emotionally give up and stop trying. Like the shark, we believe that because we were unsuccessful in the past we will always be so. In other words, we continue to see a barrier in our heads, even when no real barrier exists between where we are and where we want to go.
Life is a race that is all about winning. But winning is not the only end-point. In life we should understand no one has ever made great achievements on the very first day. In life we should wait with patience, and just keep giving our best. Hard work pays, so we shouldn’t be disheartened by failures. Life is a long journey and you’re the one who is riding the bike on it. If we’re passing a rutted road it doesn’t mean we’ll never face a smooth path. Setbacks are but stepping stones to success.
How many of us have succeeded in what we try in the first attempt? Not many. This proves success cannot be attained in one day. There are exceptions where success can be achieved easily. But when it comes to a competitive task or a tough task it takes a lot of patience and it needs many attempts to bring success to our side.
Thomas Alva Edison’s success story is inspiring. Edison’s experiments to refine the light bulb would have failed a thousand times. But his attitude was simply great; he confidently said, I didn’t fail 1000 times. I found 1000 ways of how not to make a light bulb.
In life what matters is our attitude. If we give up easily, we cannot taste the flavour of success. It takes a year for a tree to give tasty fruits. Similarly, it will take time to make success. If we want to win in life we should not stop till we finally get what we are looking for.
What will help us mark achievements is self-confidence. If we believe we can make wonders, we will. So we should believe in ourselves before expecting others to believe or support us.
When life gives a thousand reasons to quit, just give yourself one more reason to fight back to build your way to glory. The problem is that we give up after suffering a failure. And we form an imaginary barrier of constant failure in front of us, which doesn’t let us to step into the shoes that leads us to success. You’ll have to strive hard for it and make yourself believe you can do it — and the imagined mirror of problems will vanish.
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