Bob Biehl, in his book “Masterplanning,” tells about a conversation he had with a man who trains animals for Hollywood movies. He asked him, “How is it that you can stake down a ten-ton elephant with the same size stake that you use to restrain this baby elephant?”

“It’s easy,” said the trainer. “When they are babies, we stake them down. They try to tug away from the stake countless times before they realize that they can’t get away. At that point the elephant memory takes over and for the remainder of their lives they remain convinced that they can’t get away from the stake.”

Like elephants, humans have long memories. Often when we are young, some unthinking, insensitive person makes a negative statement about you or me, and we happen to hear it. Maybe they say about us, “He is not as s…