Thought for the day...

'To fight with another is wrong, but to lose a fight with another over principles you deem honorable is worse.'

Anger and Fenceposts

I received this today in the form of an e-mail from a very dear friend of mine, and it spoke to me. I wanted to share it.

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 have 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. ' A verbal
wound is as bad as a physical one.

I hope you enjoy this as I did--to each and every one of you that read this--please forgive me if I have ever left a hole.