ThE sTorY oF thE pEncIl

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’