Damage Done

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In a town far away many years ago, there lived a young boy who was destined for greatness except for one small problem. One day, the boy went to his father for help dealing with his character deficit. He told his father of how he wanted to limit and eventually eliminate his anger, and his father brought him a pail of nails and a hammer. The father told his son that, whenever he felt the urge to be angry, he should go outside and hammer a few nails into the fence until he felt in control.

As days went by, the boy made regular trips to the fence where he hammered nails in, sometimes five and sometimes as few as one. Gradually, he reduced the frequency of his sorties as well as the number of nails consumed per sortie until he no longer felt the need to go outside and hammer in nails. When he asked his father what he should do, his father said that whenever he felt in control to go out and remove a nail from the fence. More time passed, and soon the boy had removed all the nails from the fence.

Something didn’t sit well with him, and he went to his father again. He asked what could be done to fix the fence, now made unsightly by the frequency of nail holes. The father wisely replied, “There is nothing you can do. The damage is done.”

For a fence, it makes no nevermind if we hammer a few extra nails in or hammer in nails where they don’t belong. When it comes to other people, since we can’t go back to the way things were, the damage remains. However we may attempt to smooth things over, an act once perpetrated may be abrogated but never undone. However, you can never be hurt by things you don’t do.