So be it

Heard this on the radio just now.
Scientists placed a wild shark in a tank of water seperated by a pane of thick glass. The sahrk was placed on one side, and fishes from its normal habitat which the shark normally eats are placed on the other side. Initially, the shark would continously try to get across the other side to eat the fishes, slamming itself against the glass constantly, but of course it failed. The shark does not starve though, as fishes that are different from the fishes on the other side are placed in the shark's side for it to feed on. Even though fishes are on its side for it to feed on, the shark would still try to get through the glass pane to feed on the fishes on the other side.
Eventually, after many days, the shark did not attempt to slam through the glass pane anymore. Instead it would just be content with eating the fishes on its side, ignoring fishes on the other side. The scientists then removed the glass pane. Incredibly, the shark never ventured beyond its original constrained area, still ate only the fishes in its area, and even if its prey escaped over to the other side, it would not chase after it to the other side.
What does this experiment tell us? There are of course many intepretations, but mine is that people are like the shark, and sometimes we just ram our thick skulls against that glass pane over and over and over again until it hurts so much that we stop. Initially we are confident of ramming through the barrier, but as the pain escalates we give up and become afraid, so much so when there's another similar situation we imagine that there's a barrier when there isn't and we are afraid of trying to ram through it when there actually isn't one. We become afraid of the pain that may come with it, so we begin to be afraid of trying. In the end we become shadows of what we truly can be.
Maybe another human impulse would be one to avoid getting hurt, be it physical or mental or emotional.
I hope that the hurt and the fear doesn't prevent me from trying again.
Or maybe it's just that I have a perverse desire to slam myself repeatedly on glass panes until I can taste blood in my mouth.