NAIL IN THE FENCE
There
once was a little boy who had a
bad
temper.
His Father gave him a bag of
nails
and
told him that every time he lost
histemper,
he must hammer a nail into the
back
of the
fence. The first day the boy had
driven
37 nails into the fence.
Over
the next
few
weeks, as he learned to control
his
anger,
the number of nails hammered
daily
gradually
dwindled down. He discovered
it was
easier to hold his temper than
todrive
those nails into the
fence.
Finally
the day came when the boy didn't
lose
his temper at all. He told his
father about
it and the father suggested that
the
boy
now pull out one nail for each day
that
he was
able to hold his temper.
The
days passed and the young boy was
finally
able
to tell his father that all the
nails
were
gone. The father took his son by
the
hand
and led him to the fence. He 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. " A
verbal
wound
is as bad as a physical
one.
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