Nails In The Fence: A Story About Anger

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper.

His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper,
he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned
to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He
discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and
the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his
temper.

The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.

He said, ‘You’ve done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be
the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.

You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m
sorry, the wound is still there and a verbal wound is just as bad as a physical one. 

The Fox and the Grapes

One afternoon, a fox was walking through the forest and spotted a bunch of grapes hanging from a lofty branch.

“Just the thing to quench my thirst,” he thought.

Taking a couple of steps back, the fox jumped and just missed the hanging grapes. The fox tried again but still failed to reach them.

Finally, giving up, the fox turned his nose up and said, “They’re probably sour anyway,” and walked away.

Moral of the story: It’s easy to despise what you can't have.

Two Friends and the Bear

Vijay and Raju were friends. One day while on holiday, exploring a forest, they saw a bear coming towards them.

Naturally, they were both frightened, so Raju, who knew how to climb trees, climbed one quickly. He didn’t spare a thought for his friend who had no idea how to climb.

Vijay thought for a moment. He had heard that animals don’t attack dead bodies, so he fell to the ground and held his breath. The bear sniffed him, thought he was dead, and went on its way.

Raju, after he had climbed down from the tree asked Vijay, “What did the bear whisper in your ears?”

Vijay replied, “The bear asked me to keep away from friends like you.”

Moral of the story: A friend in need is a friend indeed.

The Greedy Lion

It was an incredibly hot day and a lion was feeling very hungry.

He crawled out of his den and searched here and there, but he could only find a small hare. He caught the hare, but with some hesitation as he knew the hare wouldn’t fill him up.

As the lion was about to kill the hare, he spotted a deer coming his way and thought, “Instead of eating this small hare, let me eat that big deer.”

So he let the hare go and went after the deer, but it vanished in the forest. The lion now had nothing to eat as the hare was also long gone.

Moral of the story: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Having a Best Friend

Two friends were walking through the desert. At one stage in their journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face.

The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything he wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend slapped me in the face.”

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to have a wash. The one who had been slapped got stuck in a mire and started drowning, but his friend saved him. After he had recovered from his shock, he wrote on a stone, “Today my best friend saved my life.”

The friend who slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write in stone, why?”

The other friend replied, “When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

Moral of the story: Don’t value the things you have in your life. Value those who you have in your life.

The Wise Man

People visit a wise man complaining about the same problems over and over again. One day, he decided to tell them a joke and they all roared with laughter.

After a few minutes, he told them the same joke and only a few of them smiled.

Then he told the same joke for a third time, but no one laughed or smiled anymore.

The wise man smiled and said: “You can’t laugh at the same joke over and over. So why are you always crying about the same problem?”

Moral of the story: Worrying won’t solve your problems, it’ll just waste your time and energy.

An Old Man Lived in the Village

An old man lived in the village. The whole village was tired of him; he was always gloomy, he constantly complained and was always in a bad mood. The longer he lived, the viler he became and more poisonous were his words. People did their best to avoid him because his misfortune was contagious. He created the feeling of unhappiness in others.

But one day, when he turned eighty, an incredible thing happened. Instantly everyone started hearing the rumour: “The old man is happy today, he doesn’t complain about anything, smiles, and even his face is freshened up.”

The whole village gathered around the man and asked him, “What happened to you?”

The old man replied, “Nothing special. Eighty years I’ve been chasing happiness and it was useless. And then I decided to live without happiness and just enjoy life. That’s why I’m happy now.”

Moral of the story: Don’t chase happiness. Enjoy your life.