Once upon a time, there was a little boy with a terrible temper. One day, his father gave him a big bag of nails and asked him to use a hammer to nail a staple on the fence in his backyard every time he lost his temper. The boy decided to put 37 nails on the wall on the first day. After a few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the boy gradually reduced the number of pins he put on the border daily. He found it much easier to control his temper than to put nails in the wall. Finally, the boy became less angry.
He told his father about his transformation. His father suggested, “If you can last a whole day without losing your temper, set off a nail from the fence.” After some time, the boy finally plucked all the nails off the fence.
The father took him by the hand to the fence and said to the boy, “Son, you have done very well. But look at all the little holes the nails left in the wall; the fence will never be the same again.
When you have lost your temper with someone, your words will leave scars in people’s hearts like these nail holes. You do this like stabbing someone with a knife and then plucking it out again. No matter how many times you say you’re sorry, that wound will always be there.
Verbally inflicting damage on people is no different than hurting people physically.”
This story tells us that the best way to avoid scars is to prevent hurting in the first place, especially by breaking someone’s heart.
