I read a story with a message embedded in it that I loved and I will try to recreate it here for you.
A young boy is happy and gets along with his parents until one day he starts to get angry at everything and everybody. His parents don't know what do and his temper is getting worse. His father comes up with an idea and he implements it the next time his son has a tantrum.
The father tells the boy that the next time he gets angry his punishment will be to pound a nail into a fence. Confused, the boy looks at his father sideways because he doesn't understand. But the next time the boy loses his temper his father makes him get a hammer and pound a nail into their fence.
This action gets repeated over a years time and now there are over 300 nails in the families fence but eventually the boy gets better and stops having tantrums altogether, after the father is sure the boy's anger is gone for good he tells his son that for everyday he is calm he gets to pull out a nail from the fence, the boy doesn't argue and simply does what his father told him to do.
The boy only got angry a few times that year and was calm most of the time, and eventually managed to get all the nails pulled from the fence. When the boy was on the last nail he was excited about it and told his father to come and watch him pull the nail out.
His father came out to watch the boy pull the last nail and when he did the father smiled and patted the boy on the shoulder. The boy look up to his father and said "Father, why did I have to put all those nails in the fence in the first place?"
The father looked to his son and said "I want you to imagine that every nail that you used represented your anger and hurtful words, and the fence was your mother's and my feelings, every nail that went into the fence hurt us in some way, Pulling out the nail represented the apologies you have given to us over the years." The boy nodded his head in understanding as the father went on.
"You see how the fence looks now? It is riddled with holes from where you pulled out the nail and even though you tried to repair the damage done by apologizing or pulling out the nails there are scars left behind that will always be there as reminder. Apologizing does not repair all the damage done, it leaves behind reminders."
Scott Goerz
