The Holes in the Fence

When I was still teaching four years ago, I realized that I easily lost my temper specially when  my students don't follow the rules inside the classroom. Every morning, I always got angry to students who goes to school late and no assignment. This has been going on for 3 years. Anger corrupted my heart. With my temper, I hurt a lot of people even my colleagues. On my way home, I got the chance to talk to our carpenter as the chairs in my classroom needs to be fixed. He figured out that I am kinda irritated and angry at that time. 

He ask me, "Is there something wrong Sir?"

" Well, yes! I easily gets angry and lost my temper because of small things and sometimes I am unreasonable." I replied.

"Well, I wish I can do something about it." He said.

But here's a bag of nails and a hammer. Everytime you lost your temper, hammer a nail in the fence." He continued.

     I wonder what's the point of hammering a nail in the fence. But I did still try thinking that this will also help me count how many times I lost my temper. On the first day, I had driven 28 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks as I learned to control my temper, the number of nails I hammered in the fence went down. I realized that I easily lost my temper or get mad on so many things. I also found out that its easy to control my temper than to driver those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when I didn't lose my temper at all. I told the carpenter about it and was happy about it. This time he told me to pull out those nails each time I able to hold my temper. 

     Days passed and I was able to pulled out the nails in the fence. I went back to our school carpenter and returned the bag of nails and the hammer. He smiled at me and then congratulated me again. He give me a tap in the back and told me to go with him to the fence where I previously hammered the nails. 

He said, "You have done well Sir. But look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same again. When you say or do things in anger they leave a scar just like this one."

     I was so ashamed that I put a scar on my students. I should be a role model and should inspire them instead of saying things that will destroy there life. IIt doesn't matter how many times we said sorry or ask for forgiveness but the scar is still there. So we should always control our temper before we said something that we will regret for the rest of our lives.