The boy was very angry. One day his father gave him a packet full of nails and said, “Every time you get angry, drive one nail into the stone pillar of our house with this hammer.”
On the first day the boy had to hammer in 39 nails, because he had lost his temper 39 times that day! The boy then thought it would be easier to control his anger than to keep hammering nails.
From then on he tried to control his temper. He failed at first, but with strong determination within about a week he managed to restrain his anger considerably. Gradually he hammered fewer nails, and finally the day came when he didn’t have to drive a single nail.
Then his father called him and said, “Take out the nails from the pillar.” The boy inwardly felt annoyed, because pulling nails out was much harder than hammering them in. Still, he obeyed his father.
When the nails were all removed, the father pointed to the pillar and said, “Look — the holes left by the nails are still there. The pillar can never be returned to its original condition! When you hurt someone in anger, you make the same kind of wound in their heart, which can never be completely erased.”
Lesson: It’s easy to hurt someone, but very hard to erase the marks you leave.
