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.

在一個研究實驗中，一個海洋生物學家把一條鯊魚放進一個大的水箱中，然后投放了一些小的誘餌魚進去。

As you would expect, the shark quickly swam around the tank, attacked and ate the smaller fish.

你可能已經預料到了，鯊魚快速地在水箱里四處游動，攻擊并吃掉了那些較小的魚。

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.

然后海洋生物學家將一面強韌的透明纖維玻璃插入到容器中，創建了兩個單獨的分區。然后，她把鯊魚放在纖維玻璃的一邊，另一邊是一組新的誘餌魚。

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.

再次，鯊魚迅速攻擊。然而，這一次，鯊魚撞上了玻璃纖維隔板并被彈了回來。每隔幾分鐘，鯊魚就不信邪地重復這徒勞的行為。同時，那些作為誘餌的魚在另一個區域里毫發無傷地游來游去。最后，經過大約一個小時的實驗，鯊魚放棄了。

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.

在接下來的幾個星期里，這個實驗重復了幾十次。每一次，鯊魚的攻擊性都變得更弱，并較少嘗試攻擊誘餌魚，直到最終鯊魚厭倦了沖擊纖維玻璃隔板，并完全停止攻擊。

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 baitfish swam wherever they wished, free from harm.

然后海洋生物學家拿走了纖維玻璃隔板，但鯊魚沒有攻擊。鯊魚被訓練得相信了它和誘餌之間存在一道屏障，所以魚兒游到任何地方，都不會受傷害。

Samely, as a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

同樣，當一名男子經過象群的時候，他突然停了下來。這群龐大生物被一根系在他們前腿的小繩子拴住了，他對此十分困惑。沒有鎖鏈，沒有籠子。顯然，任何時候大象們都可以掙脫束縛，然而，由于某種原因，她們并沒有掙脫。

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. 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.”

他看到附近的訓練員，問道，為什么這些動物只是站在那兒，卻不嘗試逃脫。“咳，”訓練員說，“在它們很小的時候，我們用同樣尺寸的繩子拴著它們，那個時候，這條繩子足夠拴住它們了。隨著它們漸漸長大，它們習慣性地認為自己無法掙脫。它們以為這條繩子依然可以束縛住自己，所以它們從不會嘗試掙脫。”

Many of us, after experiencing setbacks and failures, emotionally give up and stop trying. Like the shark and elephant 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.

我們中的許多人，在經歷挫折和失敗后，會從情感上選擇放棄，并停止嘗試。好比故事中的鯊魚和大象，因為過去失敗過，所以就覺得永遠不會成功。換句話說，我們經常會在我們的腦中看到一個障礙，即使我們所在的位置和我們想要達到的位置之間并沒有“真正的”障礙。