Stoicism for Inner Peace

by Einzelgänger

There is a Buddhist story that challenges the notion of righteous anger. It tells of a young boy with a bad temper. His father was concerned about the angry outbursts of his son. But, instead of fighting anger with anger, he gave the boy a bag of nails and a hammer. He told him to hammer a nail into the fence every time he lost his temper. After the first day, the boy hammered about thirty nails in the fence. But when the days passed, the daily number of nails decreased until the day came that the boy didn’t lose his temper once. He proudly told his father, who gave his son the instruction to pull out a nail every time he was able to suppress his temper. Finally, the day arrived that all the nails were pulled out. The father showed his son the fence and said: “Well done, my son! Now, I want you to look closely at the fence. It’s full of holes, which means that it has been changed forever. When you let anger out, it will leave scars. You can stick a knife in someone and pull it out, but no matter how often you apologize, the scar will be there forever.”