A beautiful young girl arrived at the beach looking for a boy everyone was talking about; she found him sitting on the sand, gently strumming his guitalele. She stood in front of him, impetuous and domineering, and demanded:
‘Tell me where the gates of paradise and hell are.’
The lad stopped strumming the strings, looked her up and down with disdain and replied:
‘Teach you? Look at yourself – you think you’re so tough, but you’re just a capricious, insignificant girl. I’m not going to waste my time on you.’
The young woman seethed with rage; feeling her pride wounded, she picked up a large, heavy stone from the shore and raised it above the boy’s head in blind fury, ready to crush him. He, without moving or ceasing to smile calmly, looked her straight in the eye and said softly:
‘That is the gateway to hell.’
The girl froze; in an instant she understood everything—her own anger and ego had almost turned her into a monster. She dropped the stone and knelt in the sand, bowing her head to ask for his forgiveness. The boy picked up his guitalele again, strummed a sweet chord and said to her:
‘And this is the gate to heaven.’
‘Heaven and hell are not places we go to; they are states of mind we choose to inhabit at every moment.’
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