A father and his son went to a circus. Outside was a big elephant with one leg tied to a stick nailed into ground.

The boy asked: Dad, why is it tied to a stick?

The father answered, because the owner doesn’t want the elefant to run away.

But Dad, the stick is tiny and the elephant is huge. He could take out the stick and go to the forest.

Yes, but it is trained

If it is trained, why is it tied?.

The elephant owner heard the boy’s questions and told.

When this elephant was a baby, I tied its leg to a stick and nailed it deep into the ground.

The next days it pulled and pulled the stick but couldn’t get it out.

After two weeks trying, it was tired and stopped pulling it.

This was the last time the elephant tried to scape.

It grew up thinking it couldn’t get it out.

Now that idea, that short stick, is deep in its brain and it will never be free.

We all have similar ideas or short sticks in our brain.

For example

I can’t play the piano because when I was young my music teacher told me that I was the worst piano player.

I can’t speak in public because I’m shy

I can’t go to Australia by myself because my English is bad and I can’t learn English because I don’t have memory or I don’t have enough time.

I can’t meet that person because I am bored, quiet, bald, skinny, fat or ugly.

I can’t do anything because I am lazy.

I can make nothing because I am busy.

Now, teacher, look at us, your students. Many of us are elderly, but we have taken out a short stick from our brains since we started learning English.

It is not easy, I know it is difficult. But we are trying it.

And yes mates, we can do it.

I have told this text in class in front of my classmates. I am an English student at the Official Language School of Donostia and I am at level B1.