Learn from a pencil!

A pencil can teach five most important things about life:

1. You are capable of creating great things but what you must never forget is that there is a hand guiding you. Now the definition of the hand depends on your belief. For some, it can be the hand of God while for me it means the efforts or support of so many people, the faith of so many people in you that is helping you create that something great.

2. Now and then, you need to stop writing and sharpen the pencil. In the same manner, you can't just keep on going. You need to halt and learn. That learning can be from your failures, sorrows or self initiated learning quests. You need to sharpen your skills from time to time in order to maintain the consistency and quality of your work.

3. A pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. We too should think about this. Correcting a mistake we did is not bad thing. We should always be ready to accept our mistakes, correct them at the earliest, if possible, and never do things that might cause irrepairable damage to someone.

4. What matters in a pencil is the lead at the core not the wooden exterior. Likewise, what really matters is what you are from within. Outer appearance doesn't really matter that much. What really matters is the actions we perform and decisions we take.

5. A pencil always leaves a mark. Remember that even you as a human always leave your marks. Be aware and careful enough about where you leave your mark. One small ignorance on your part can leave a bad mark forever.

This post is an excerpt from the book Like the flowing river by Paulo Coelho. I really liked this part of the book and thought of sharing it with everyone.