Once, a shepherd offended a man so deeply that the man decided to get revenge.
He knew the shepherd usually grazed his animals far from town, in a quiet, isolated area where hardly anyone passed by. So he came up with a plan: he would dig a deep pit there—one the shepherd would fall into.
Late at night, he grabbed a shovel and went out to the field.
As he dug, he imagined the moment his enemy would step into the trap—falling into the hole, breaking a leg, maybe even dying because he couldn’t climb out. And if it wasn’t the shepherd himself, maybe one of his animals—a cow, a sheep, or a goat—would fall in instead.
Driven by anger and the desire for revenge, he kept digging deeper and deeper. He became so consumed by his thoughts that he lost track of everything around him.
Only when the first light of dawn appeared did he finally pause.
Looking at the pit, he realized something shocking: the hole was so deep that if he climbed down into it himself, he wouldn’t be able to get out.
Before you start digging a pit for someone else—even in your thoughts—remember this: to dig it, you first have to step down into it yourself.
And the first victim of every trap is always the one who digs it.