Inspirational Stories

Things Are Not Always Black or White

When I was in elementary school, I got into a major argument with a boy in my class. I have forgotten what the argument was about, but I have never forgotten the lesson I learned that day.

I was convinced that "I" was right and "he" was wrong - and he was just as convinced that "I" was wrong and "he" was right. The teacher decided to teach us a very important lesson. She brought us up to the front of the class and placed him on one side of her desk and me on the other. In the middle of her desk was a large, round object. I could clearly see that it was black. She asked the boy what color the object was. "White," he answered.

I couldn’t believe he said the object was white, when it was obviously black! Another argument started between my classmate and me, this time about the color of the object.

The teacher told me to go stand where the boy was standing and told him to come stand where I had been. We changed places, and now she asked me what the color of the object was. I had to answer, "White." It was an object with two differently colored sides, and from his viewpoint it was white. Only from my side was it black.

My teacher taught me a very important lesson that day: You must stand in the other person’s shoes and look at the situation through their eyes in order to truly understand their perspective.

- Judie Paxton

Scars

There was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a
bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, to
hammer a nail in the back fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into
the fence.

Then it 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."

- Author Unknown

Food for Thought !

"Life is illogical. It is wild. In life, contradictions are not contradictions but complementariness."

- Anonymous

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