Flea Training Minute

This Minute is meant for Scouts BSA.

I'm sure you've heard of a flea circus. That's where tiny little fleas are trained to perform amazing tricks. But they're too small to really see, so its kind of silly.

But, people do supposedly catch fleas and train them. And, those people have observed a strange habit of fleas while training them.

Fleas can jump extremely high (that's how they get from animal to animal) so when a flea is caught, it is put in a jar. Without a lid, its simple for the flea to escape by just popping right out of the jar. So, the flea trainer quickly puts a lid on the jar.

When the flea jumps, BANG, it hits the lid and falls down. Over and over, the flea will jump and BANG hit the lid. Until, after some time, you can see that the flea is jumping just almost to the lid, but not quite. It jumps and jumps, not quite hitting the top, but jumping as high as it can.

Now, that seems like a pretty smart flea to me. But, what's strange is to see what happens when you take the lid off. The flea continues to jump just almost to where the lid was. It won't jump any higher.

The flea hit a limit to what it could do. It decided that it could not go any higher and then never tried to improve. Even though the limit was gone, it was stuck in a rut - doing just what it always did and not challenging itself.

If you find that you can't do something today, don't assume you will never be able to do it. Try it again tomorrow or next week. You might hit the lid occasionally but you won't be held back any imaginary limits that you outgrow.