In a small village, there lived a little boy with his father and mother. He was their only son. The boy’s parents were very upset because of his temper. The boy would quickly become very angry and shout at everyone around him.
His bad temper made him mean, which hurt others. He would yell at children, neighbors, and even his own friends because of his anger. Eventually, his friends and neighbors started avoiding him, and his parents became really worried.
His mother and father tried many times to help him control his anger and be kind instead, but unfortunately, all their efforts failed. Finally, the boy’s father came up with an idea.
One day, his father gave him a big bag of nails. He told his son to hammer a nail into the fence every time he got angry and lost his temper. The little boy thought it sounded fun and accepted the challenge.
Every time he lost his temper, he would run to the fence and hammer in a nail. On the first day, he got so angry that he hammered 30 nails into the fence! Over the next few days, the number of nails hammered into the fence was reduced to half. The little boy found it hard to hammer the nails and decided to control his temper.
Gradually, the number of nails hammered into the fence decreased, and the day came when not a single nail was hammered into the fence! The boy didn’t lose his temper at all that day and didn’t get angry. In the following days, he also managed to stay calm and didn’t hammer any more nails.
Now, his father asked him to remove a nail from the fence each time the boy controlled his anger. Several days passed, and the boy was able to pull out most of the nails from the fence. However, there were a few nails left that he couldn’t pull out.
The boy told his father about it.
His father appreciated his honesty and pointed to a hole in the fence, asking, “What do you see there?”
The boy replied, “A hole in the fence!”
The father said to the boy, “The nails were your bad temper, and they were hammered into people. You can remove the nails, but the holes in the fence will always remain.
The fence will never look the same; it has scars all over it. Some nails can’t even be pulled out.
The same is true with your temper—words are more painful than you might think. Use your words to show love instead.”
From that day on, the boy remembered what his father said, and before he got angry, he would take a deep breath and turn his anger into love.
