The Boy And The Fence

[hendrb01]

There once lived a boy who had a bad temper. He would get angry at every little thing. One day, his father gave him a bag of nails and told him, "Every time you get angry, hammer a nail into that front wall."

And so the activity started. On the first day, the boy hammered 50 nails. The next day, he hammered 40. Each time he used to go there, he repented being angry - it was quite a challenge to hammer a nail into that damn brick wall! Slowly, he discovered that controlling anger was easier than hammering, and the number of nails hammered started going down.

Eventually, a day came when he didn't get angry, and he felt the joy of it. Now his father gave him another task, "If you do not get angry the entire day, remove one nail from the wall." After several days, all the nails were removed.

Now his father took him near the wall and asked him what did he see. The boy replied that he can see holes in the wall. The father then explained to his son: "These holes are like the scars that you leave on people when you get angry. No matter how many times you say sorry, the scar does not go."