A Good Lesson
Tommy was sent home almost every week by the school headmaster because he caused problems at school. He was an angry boy who lost his temper very easily. This means he often became angry with his friends, and he always seemed to hurt other people with his words.
His father came up with an idea to try to stop the boy from getting angry so easily. He gave his son a hammer and some nails and told him to hammer a nail into the fence every time he got angry in the future.
The following day, the boy got angry 37 times, and had to hammer 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, the boy got tired of hammering nails into the fence and he slowly started to control his temper. The number of nails he was hammering into the fence started to go down. The boy realized that it was easier to stay calm when he started to feel angry than to gather the tools, go outside, and start hammering.
One day he told his father that he didn't hammer any nails into the fence. His dad was happy and told the boy to take out a nail from the fence every day that he was able to keep his temper under control.
Then, after the weeks went by, all the nails had been taken out of the fence. The father and son stood in front of the fence, which was now filled with holes.
The father turned to his son and said, “You have done well, but look at the holes in the fence. They cannot be fixed. When you get angry at other people, it leaves a scar just like the holes you see in front of you. It doesn’t matter if you say I’m sorry one hundred times, the hurt is still there.”
