A white elephant is a rare type of elephant that is considered sacred and prestigious in Thailand and other south-east Asian countries. It was often owned by monarchs. Since the animal was considered sacred, it required a special diet and housing and was exempted from labour. The white elephant was therefore expensive to keep and was of no practical use for the Thai peasant who needed elephants for transport and intense labour.
Now, the story goes that some cunning kings used to give white elephants as gifts to people they disliked. This means that if you received a white elephant as a gift, in the eyes of the public, you will be considered favored by the king but you will also be stuck with a beast that is too costly to possess leading to your financial ruin.
Actually, white elephants are really not white. Some people who wanted the prestige and fame associated with owning a white elephant would spend great effort and resources to acquire one but would often be disappointed to find out that it’s really grayish or pinkish in colour.
We all have white elephants in our lives, gifts from our past-selves that have outlived their usefulness, become too expensive to maintain or even harmful.
Some of our relationships are white elephants that are emotionally too costly to keep. They are demanding, painful and toxic, yet have no practical usefulness.
Some of our social identities that were useful in the past may become a burden to maintain. If you are a musician, must you continue being a musician even when you no longer want to sing?
But it is hard to get rid of the white elephants in our lives because we feel obligated to keep them since we have already invested much in them. Just like paying a deposit (partial payment) for an item, we are more likely to pay the full price even when the item is no longer valuable to us.
The longer we keep white elephants the harder they are to dispose of. It is easier to quit a week-old relationship than a ten-year marriage. A person who did a two-week course in typing is more likely to move on to another profession than a person who spent ten years earning a PhD in typing.
But if our past-selves gifts us, and we notice that the gift is a white elephant, can we politely decline by saying “Thank you, but No Thank you”. Or is it rude to say no to gifts?
A friend told me that he once had a lovely puppy. The puppy grew up to be a fierce dog that kept intruders to his home at bay. The mongrel however eventually became unruly and started eating his chicken. After several failed attempts to dissuade the dog from eating his birds, one day, he wrapped a wire around its neck and strangled it to death!
Life is life
Fabio