A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point he asked:

' Are you writting a story about what we've done? Is it a story about me? '

His grandmother stopped writting her letter and said to her grandson:

'I am writting about you, actually, bot more important is the pencil than the words 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 its like every other pencil I've 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 can 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 mistakes This means that correcting something we did is not necessarilt a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.

'Fourth quality: what really  matters in a oencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside of 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.

Source: "Like flowing river" by Paulo Coelho