THE BOY AND THE FENCE
A story of a young boys anger
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who had a very bad temper. His father decided to hand him a bag of nails and said that every time the he should lose his temper, he should hammer a nail into the fence outside.
On the first day, the boy hammered 77 nails into that fence! The boy gradually began to control his temper over the next few weeks, and the number of nails he was hammering into the fence slowly decreased in number.
He discovered it was easier to control his temper than to hammer those nails into the fence.
Finally, the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father the good news and the father suggested that the boy should now pull out a nail from the fence every day that he managed to keep his temper under control.
Many days passed by until finally the young boy was able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him over to the fence.
The father said,
“you have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.”
ALWAYS REMEMBER…
Control your anger! Don’t say things to people in the heat of the moment that you will likely regret later. Some things in life you may NEVER be able to take back.
