How a teenager won over his anger!

    Once upon a time, there lived a teenage boy in a small town. The boy had a very short temper and used to shout at anybody, anywhere. He didn't think for a second before opening his mouth in anger. Everyone used to dislike him for being grumpy, short-tempered, and foul-mouthed.

    His parents tried everything possible to get rid of his anger, but failed. They finally approached a wise man and asked him to help. The wise man promised to help and visited their house. He spoke to the teenager and gave him a task. He gave him a hammer, a box full of nails and a big wooden board. He told the boy: “Whenever you get angry, you hit a nail on this board. Also, keep a count of nails you hit every day”. The boy agreed and took the bag full of nails.

    The wise man kept visiting their house once a week to check on the boy. By the end of the first week, the board had 25 nails. This continued for a few weeks, and the number of nails on the board kept increasing.

    After a few weeks, realisation dawned on the boy – the number of nails per week started going down. Soon, there arrived a day when he didn’t hit a single nail! The boy felt very happy. When the wise man came at the end of the week, the boy ran up to him to report zero nail day.

    The wise man asked him to try for zero week, and that also came very quickly. Now, the boy has almost stopped hitting nails on the board. This time wise man gave him another task. He asked him to remove a nail on a zero-nail day. The boy was very happy to do that. Soon, a day arrived when all the nails on the board got removed.

    This time, when the wise man came home, the boy was very excited to show the board without nails. The wise man acknowledged the boy’s achievement and then asked him: "Good that you have learned to control your anger. But, look at the board. It still has holes in it. Can that be fixed?” The boy understood what the wise man was saying. The wise man continued: "Whenever you speak harsh things to people in anger, it leaves a deep impact on them. These impacts are like a scar to them, which they will remember forever."

Moral of the Controlling Anger Story   

    One must keep control of one’s temper and mouth, as people often speak harshly out of anger that can deeply hurt someone. For example, if a glass is broken, you may fix it, but the cracks will remain forever. Similarly, if you break out on someone out of anger and apologise later on, it will still have a bad impact on the person.