When I was a small boy, I loved going to the circus. I was quite impressed by the elephant, who is — as I found out later — the favorite animal of all children. As the show was approaching its end, slightly before the elephant had to return to his tent, he was standing tied to a tiny wooden stake driven partially into the ground. A chain was wrapped around his feet.
The size of the stake was very small, and the part of it that was driven into the ground was even smaller. The chain that was wrapped around the legs of the elephant was quite large, but it seemed quite obvious, even to my childish mind, that an animal whose power was so large, so immense that it could rip trees off the ground and hurl them to others, was more than enough to let the elephant just rise and walk away.

That was the mystery of the elephant. What sort of immense force could keep the elephant tied to that tiny stake? Why didn’t he rise and walk away?

I found the answer many years later. Quite recently, actually, as I had the chance to meet an elephant trainer: the elephant doesn’t run away because they have been tying him to a similar stake ever since he was very small.

Close your eyes, now, and try to imagine the small, newborn elephant chained to the ground. For days he would push, pull and struggle with all his strength, trying to free himself, but he would fail. Despite all his efforts, he would fail again and again.
Then, one day, he would just give up, and accept his fate, deciding that he was too weak to escape.

Years later, the elephant has grown: now he weighs six tons, and yet he has never tried to free himself since. Because the memory of the lack of strength he felt a little after his birth is now deeply engraved to his very soul and spirit.