Thursday, November 30, 2017
Shark Bait
During a research experiment a marine biologist placed a shark
into 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,
attacked and ate the smaller fish.
The marine biologist then inserted a strong piece of clear
fiberglass into the tank, creating two separate partitions. She then put the
shark on one side of the fiberglass and a new set of bait fish on the other.
Again, the shark quickly attacked. This time, however, the shark slammed into
the fiberglass divider and bounced off.
Undeterred, the shark kept repeating this behavior every few minutes to
no avail. Meanwhile, the bait fish swam
around unharmed in the second partition.
Eventually, about an hour into the experiment, the shark gave up.
This experiment was repeated several dozen times over the
next few weeks. Each time, the shark got
less aggressive and made fewer attempts to attack the bait fish, until
eventually the shark got tired of hitting the fiberglass divider and simply
stopped attacking altogether.
The marine biologist then removed the fiberglass divider,
but the shark didn’t attack. The shark
was trained to believe a barrier existed between it and the bait fish, so the
bait fish swam wherever they wished, free from harm.
The moral: Many of
us, after experiencing setbacks and failures, emotionally give up and stop
trying. Like the shark in the story, we believe that because we were
unsuccessful in the past, we will always be unsuccessful. 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.
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