Please be kind, and rewind

There is a small piece of paper that hangs above my work desk that says, “Criticism should always leave people with the feeling that they have been helped.” I clearly remember stumbling upon this after I had been been dealt an earful of unnecessary, hurtful criticism from someone with an inflated ego. It was a lesson learned. 

It reminds me of this *story: 
“A little boy was saying mean things to his friends, and his dad caught him one day. The boy apologized; he said ‘I take it back.’ The dad took the boy into the field with a cup of nails and a hammer. He said the nails were mean words. He told his son to pound the nails into the fence post. The boy pounded all the nails into the post and then his father said, ‘Now, take them back. Take all the mean words back.’

“The boy pulled all the nails out of the post.
“Then the dad said, ‘Now look at the post. You took them back, but look what you've done to the post.’ And the boy saw all the holes in the wood.”

We all say and do things in the heat of the moment. It just takes a moment to breathe and think, because some things leave a lasting impression.
*Excerpt from My Yes, My No by LS.  Photo: Ren Reiske © All Rights Reserved.