A father told his son one day, that every time he lost his temper to go hammer a nail into the fencepost in the backyard. The son willingly agreed and after the first day, realized that he had hammered in 37 nails. Everyday the son tried harder to control his temper and the number of nails he hammered in became less and less.
Finally after many months, the boy went an entire day without hammering a single nail into the fencepost. Pleased with his accomplishment, he found his father and told him the good news. The father smiled and said "I'm proud of you, son. Now every day that you don't lose your temper, I want you to go and remove a nail from the fencepost." And this the son did.
Eventually, all of the nails had been removed. Again, the boy went to his father to share with him what he had done. The father smiled, placing his hand on his sons shoulder, he said, "I'm so proud of you. But I want to show you something." They walked out back together and stopped in front of the fencepost, now free of nails. The father pointed to the post and said, "Every nail that you hammered into this post left a hole that weakened it, and can never truely be fixed. Although you removed the nails, the holes still remain, the post still broken. I can't tell you how proud I am of you of your accomplishments, but I want you to remember that every time you lost your temper, it left a hole in someones heart that still needs mending."
No comments:
Post a Comment