There once was an Uncle Gee and a wise Uncle Gee was he…
The problem is, he had a son with serious anger management issues. This kid was a teenage nightmare. He would flip out over nothing, lose it and shout and swear at all the wrong people. Fortunately…
…Uncle Gee had an idea.
He sat down with his son & told him that every time he loses his temper, he won’t be punished, he just has to take a nail and hammer it into the fence outside.
Then, at the end of the week, he was to count up all the nails & try to reduce them the next week.
Here’s what happened…
Week 1: 30 nails added
Week 2: 25 nails added
Week 3: 15 nails added
Week 4: 5 nails added
Week 5: 0 nails added!
As you can imagine, by week 5 the kid was celebrating – he had mastered his anger! After congratulating him, his wise father told him, that from now on, to re-enforce the victory, every time he feels angry and controls it, he can take 1 nail out of the fence.
Each time the Teenage Dream Child did this, he felt more and more proud of himself. Eventually, he managed to remove ALL of the nails from the fence, and was feeling so much more happy, peaceful and loved.
When he removed the final nail, he delightfully told his father, our Uncle Gee.
Uncle Gee wisely gave his son one final piece of advice…
He said “Now, look at the fence, and tell me what you see.”
A wave of realisation washed over the son. Almost in tears, and a little choked up, he replied:
“It’s completely ruined.”
“Exactly” said the Uncle Gee. “Every time you lost your temper, you did to the people you love what those nails did to the fence.”
Moral of the Story:
If you want to save yourself a ruined fence, broken relationships and a lot of nails, join the rest of the Uncle and Auntie Gees, over at…