The Tragic Nail

Today I did something wrong.

I saw a nail on the company steps. To keep others from stepping on it and hurting themselves, I picked it up.

It was a brand-new nail.

I held it in my hand, walked a few steps, and then thought it didn’t seem useful to keep holding it.

So, I just tossed it into the dark stairwell below.

At the time, it didn’t seem like much.

But when I got back in the evening, I suddenly thought about how tragic that nail was. In its prime, yet doomed to stay in the stairwell until it rusts away, only to end up as trash.