The Elephant in the Corner

The young child spoke,

"There's an elephant in our corner, I see it. Do you? Can we talk about it?"
"Oh, I understand--you don't see the elephant. Can I describe it to you?"
"No? Why not?"
"Oh, I see, even if you could see the elephant, you wouldn't want to talk about it."
"Maybe I'm just imagining things."

The older child spoke,

"Assuming that you could see it, would you perhaps just casually like to discuss the fact that it's huge and stinky and ugly? And that it takes up an enormous amount of room? And that we all have to walk around the elephant?"
"Oh, I forgot; you don't see the elephant and don't want to talk about it."
"Maybe I'm just imagining things."

So the elephant stood there in the corner. And the people who swore they couldn't see it and didn't want to talk about it fed it and cleaned up after it. Though the feeding and cleaning were difficult and unfulfilling jobs, the people were proud because of their work. But they still couldn't/wouldn't admit that there was an elephant in the corner. And just to be safe, they decided that they would keep a secret. The secret would be that no one could know about the elephant (if it really did happen to exist), and that no one must ever talk about it. And the elephant grew as elephants do when fed and cleaned-up-after. And it never left because it liked its corner just fine.

One by one, some of the older children and the younger adults and even a few of the older adults finally admitted that there really was an elephant there. They found that lots of people already knew that and would be happy to talk with them about the elephant. They were so relieved that they called this process recovery. And they told anyone who would listen about the elephant.

Others, however, just couldn't bring themselves to talk about it, though in their hearts they knew it was there and they really could see it quite clearly.

For the one group who learned to share with the others who admitted the elephant was there, the elephant slowly shrank away and disappeared.

For the other group who couldn't face talking about the elephant, a tragic thing happened. One day the elephant sat down on them and they died!

copyright  © 1999, Larry A. Pace.