12/02/2016
A STORY TO READ
A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter.
At one point he asked: ‘Are you writing a story
about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me?’
His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to
her grandson: I am writing about you,... actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I’m
using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you
grow up.’.
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem
very special.
‘But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!’.
‘That depends on how you look at things. It has five
qualities which, if you manage to hang on them, will
make you a person who is always at peace with the
world.’
‘First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding
your steps. We call that hand God, and He always
guides us according to His will.’.
‘Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing
and use a sharpner. That makes the pencil suffer a
little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows,
because they will make you a better person.
‘Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an
eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that
correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad
thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.’. ‘Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not
its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always
pay attention to what is happening inside you.’
‘Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a
mark. in just the same way, you should know that
everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action’
