There once was an old wise man that lived in the woods. He enjoyed his life of solitude and spent much of his time in nature, watching the animals and contemplating the workings of the universe and why things are the way they are. He learned a lot from observing the creatures in the forest and he enjoyed the dancing polarity between the simplicity and complexity of it all.

One day while out on a hike in the forest, deep in the woods, he came across a young man sobbing in anguish.  As he walked closer to the boy, he saw the boy had a large hammer in one hand and the other was bloody and mangled. The wise man approached the boy to help and as his did, he saw the hammer swing down over and over onto the already damaged mess of what still slightly resembled a hand.

“What on earth are you doing son?” Asked the man. The boy looked up, tears streaming down his face, and again brought the hammer down upon his own hand again, and again.

“Can’t you see!?” exclaimed the boy, “I’m in pain!” he shouted.  The wise man looked down with compassion in his eyes, and replied, “Well yes, I can see that! Why would you do that to yourself?”

The boy paused for only a moment to look up at the man with a puzzled look on his face for only a moment before he began bashing his hand again. Annoyed at the question, the boy went back to repeatedly bashing his hand and angerly shouted, “What do you mean why would I do that to myself? Because that’s what I was taught to do!”

Puzzled, the wise man repeated, “taught?” The boy stands up, walks toe to toe so he is looking the man in his eyes and cries. “Yes! Taught! My father took a hammer to my mother’s hand, my mother took a hammer to mine, and she showed me that this is just what we do. This is how we do things! But I am tired and this hurts. It hurts so bad!”

The man looks around the woods, not another human in sight, not for miles, and he looks back at the boy. He pauses and says calmly. “Why don’t you just put the hammer down son?”

The boy takes a couple of steps back and with a maniacal laugh says, “Oh yeah, that sounds like a great idea! You just know everything don’t you!? The wise man stares blankly at the boy for a moment of pause.  It seemed like such an obvious solution.  He began again, “Look, I mean no disrespect to you or your family and the way you have always done things. However, you seem to be in a great deal of pain, and you have done so much damage to your hand already. What if you just stopped hitting yourself with the hammer?”

The boy throws up his hands and shouts, “Yeah? And then what? What am I supposed to do with all my free time and two good hands? The man took a deep sigh and softly said, “Not be in pain.”

“But pain is all I have ever known.”

“I understand, but there IS more to life than just hurting.” The wise man continued, “I know that trying something other than that in which you have always known can be terrifying, but you have seen this pain, you know it intimately. It probably feels familiar and even comforting at times, but there is so much more to life than this pain if you will just put down that hammer, you may see.”

Some moths later the wise man is at home inside his cabin in the middle of the woods and he hears a knock at his door. Wondering if maybe he is just hearing things, he removes his reading glasses and looks over his book at the door.  Another knock.  He sets his reading aside, gets off his chair by the window and walks over to open the door.  To his surprise, there stands the boy he met with the hammer. The man can see pain and sadness in the boy’s eyes, he slowly looks down and sees the boy is holding a wrench in one hand, and some heavy bruising and cuts on the other.

Before the wise man even asks, the boy holds up his damaged hand and shouts, “See! I did what you said and I gave up the hammer and look! I still have these wounds! I am still in pain!”  The man looks down and softly gestures his gaze to the wrench clenched firmly in the boy’s other hand. The man takes a deep breath in and lets out a long contemplative breath before he begins.  “Son, it seems as though you have found another tool to hurt yourself with.”

The boy stares blankly at the wise man as if he were waiting for more of an explanation.  The wise man continues, “It is good that you have put the hammer down and are no longer using that as a way to harm yourself, but simply swapping the hammer out for another tool to create the same destruction won’t ease your pain.”  The boy stares at the wise man, looks down at the bloody wrench and releasing his grip drops it to the floor and then silently turns to walk away into the night.

Another few months pass and the wise man is home inside his cabin in the woods cooking dinner for himself when he hears a knock at the door. This time, he doesn’t even need to wonder, he has been expecting this visit. He opens the door and once again finds the boy on his front porch with tears in his eyes. This time the boy has deep cuts and scaring down his forearms.  The wise man’s heart sinks into his stomach. He opens the door wider and gestures for the boy to come inside. “Are you hungry?” He asks.

Without a saying a word the boy steps inside and silently weeps.  The wise man walks over to his favorite char and nods towards the sofa across from it.  “Would you like to sit down?”  The boy scuffs his muddy shoes across the wood floors over to the sofa and collapses onto it as his buries his head in his hands heaving, tears rolling down both his cheeks.  “I don’t know why I still feel this way!?” He cried.  “I have given up on hammers, I have given up on wrenches, and I have given up on razor blades, but I still have all of this pain!  I still have these scars and some of my wounds have begun to fester and I’ve already lost two of my fingers!”

The wise man looked upon the boy with loving compassion. He wanted to offer up the right words, he wanted to take the boy’s pain away. He thought for a moment of all the times he’d been in this boy’s position.  All the times he was hurt, abused and broken. All the healers he once called upon to help mend his wounds.  He remembered back to all the times he sought out advice from others and then went right back to harming himself before he took up this life of solitude to do the work on his own.

Before the wise man began to speak, the boy continued, “I hate tools! I hate them!! I don’t know why they do this to me; I want it to stop!” “I don’t want to feel this way anymore!”

The wise man sat in silence as the boy cried for a very long time until finally the sobbing started to subside.  After the boy calmed down a little, he finally looked up through swollen eyes and demanded, “Well aren’t you going to say anything? What great words of wisdom do you have for me now!?”  The wise man thought for a moment, leaned in and began.  “I wish that there was something I could say or do to would ease your suffering.”  The boy interrupted, enraged and shouted, “But you can’t can you!?”

The man sat back in his chair, gathered his thoughts and began again, “I wish there was something I could say or do to ease your suffering, but the truth is only you can do that.”  Annoyed, the boy slammed his back against the couch crossing his arms against his chest and rolled his eyes as he turned his head away.”  The wise man leaned in and in softer voice repeated, “Only you can ease your own suffering.”

“I could help bandage your wounds, but if you don’t change the dressing, they will continue to fester.  I could show you how to use a hammer or wrench for its intended use, but I can’t stop you from swinging it down upon your own flesh.  I can share with you all my wisdom and knowledge, but I can’t make you listen.  I could give you all the love I have in my heart, but I can’t make you feel it.  Most importantly: I cannot make you love yourself.  Only you can do that.”  He went on, “You see, I am not responsible for your pain, just as you are not responsible for mine. Only you can ease your own suffering.”