Temper

Temper

Viewpoint From Below

It is such a shame that the social media we are all familiar with with all its potential for good, can also be a place where people try to take advantage of others. In one day I was warned by a friend of yet another scam where those with no good intent were trying to get personal information for wrong reasons.

First reaction is to get angry and maybe even lose your temper. Now being a redhead in my youth I am familiar with temper. I as a child had a rather quick temper. It took a long time to discover the difference between righteous anger and losing my temper. 

There are two thoughts I share with you the reader today. The first is the story of the young boy who had a terrible temper.

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 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.”

The second is an ancient story of the Zen master and his student. 

The student came to the master and said, "Master, I have a ungovernable temper, How can I cure it?"

" You have something very strange," replied the master. "Let me see what you have."

"Just now I cannot show it to you," replied the student.

"When can you show it to me," asked the master.

"It arises unexpectedly," said the student.

"Then," concluded the master, "It must not be your true nature. If it were , you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. Think that over."

You can put a knife in another and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there. 

Make sure you control your temper the next time you are tempted to say something you will regret later.

Todays painting is a watercolour in Falkland Estate. It is a viewpoint but from an unusual angle. It is from below the viewpoint looking up. Normally the top of the rock is the place where people stand and take pictures. It is often good to see things from another angle.