The story of the pencil - El historia del lapiz

The story of the pencil 

By Paulo Coelho

The boy was watching his grandfather writing a letter. A few moments later, he asked: "Are you writing a story that happened to both of us? Or Is it a story about me?" The grandfather stopped writing, and said to the grandson: "Yes, indeed. I'm writing about you. However, more important than words is the pencil I am using." The boy looked at the pencil, intrigued, and saw nothing special. "It isn't that rare. It's not like any other pencil I saw in my life!" "Everything depends on the way you look at things. There are five qualities in the pencil that, if you can keep them, will make you a person forever at peace with the world.” First quality: you can do great things, but never forget that there is a hand that guides your steps. We call this hand God, and He will always lead you in the direction of His will.

Second: from time to time I need to stop writing and use the pencil sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a bit, but it is sharper in the end. Therefore, you must be able to bear some pain, because it will make you a better person.

Third: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to erase what is wrong. Understand that correcting something we have done is not necessarily a bad thing, but something important to keep us on the path of justice.

Fourth: what really matters in the pencil is not the wood or its outer shape, but the graphite inside. Therefore, always take care of what happens inside you.

Finally, the fifth quality of the pencil: it always leaves a mark. In the same way, you have to know that everything you do in life will leave traces, and try to be aware of each action.