Have you heard the story of an elephant being tied to a pole with a rope? Where the elephants could, at any time, break free from their bonds, but for some reason, they do not!

Coz, “when they are very young and much smaller, they used the same sized rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them, but as they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

I read this story when I was a teenager, I liked it, and it was interesting and that’s about it. I don’t remember reflecting on it, about myself, or my conditioning. When I go to my sessions in Hombegowda School, I have had some interesting, yet customary instances in many sessions.

The children copy each other’s drawing, even if it has to do with drawing their self portrait, copy an image from their book, or cover of their pencil box, instead of digging into their imagination, peep into their friend’s sheet to write the things they treasure. What was amusing was seeing one student copying his name from his namesake!

Who is to blame? The children,who can’t think out of the box, or the adults,who always give references to draw, to write or do anything the children could on their own! What are the underlying fears or rhyme and reason for boxing everything and giving a reference point for everything? Why not let children’s imagination and creative forces run wild? Or is it the lack of trust in them, or the fear of failure, or need to rescue? Or, are we adults also conditioned that this is the only way? And what are the repercussions of this kind of functioning? What is this leading to?

Often, what starts off as efforts to help the child or direct the child, it ends up conditioning them that they can no more break free to act, or express without it. Unfortunately, this becomes a learned behaviour that is difficult to let go of in later life, despite our fully developed abilities to create our own.

So, instead of drawing from our imagination, we look for already existing, conditioned pictures of drawing a landscape with mountains with 2 birds, a tree and a hut below; instead of mustering the courage to compose our own song, we settle down to singing the already existing ones. However, there is nothing wrong or less of us to do so, but this conditioning must not belittle children’s or our creative forces in finding or own voice. What do you think?

In 100^th Monkey, we facilitators consciously make it a point to encourage students to visualize themselves as Heroes, to imagine what their future will look like, create their dream school, or village, or world, compose a song etc. These are our efforts to encourage students to step out of their conditioning and comfort zone and enter the zone of creative possibilities. It is truly a journey filled with inner triumphs, when they “breakfree” from that rope that is holding them!

How many of us go through life hanging onto a belief, assume we cannot do something, simply because of our previous conditioning?

So, what is the rope that is stopping you? How will you break free from it?!