Chicken Soup for the Soul: All Your Favorite Original Stories

by Jack Canfield

  Pamela Rogers

  P.S. On the way home I hugged a policeman on 37th Street. He said, “Wow! Policemen never get hugs. Are you sure you don’t want to throw something at me?”

  Another seminar graduate, Charles Faraone, sent us the following piece on hugging:

  Hugging Is

  Hugging is healthy. It helps the immune system, cures depression, reduces stress and induces sleep. It’s invigorating, rejuvenating and has no unpleasant side effects. Hugging is nothing less than a miracle drug.

  Hugging is all natural. It is organic, naturally sweet, no artificial ingredients, nonpolluting, environmentally friendly and 100 percent wholesome.

  Hugging is the ideal gift. Great for any occasion, fun to give and receive, shows you care, comes with its own wrapping and, of course, fully returnable.

  Hugging is practically perfect. No batteries to wear out, inflation-proof, nonfattening, no monthly payments, theft-proof and nontaxable.

  Hugging is an underutilized resource with magical powers. When we open our hearts and arms, we encourage others to do the same.

  Think of the people in your life. Are there any words you’d like to say? Are there any hugs you want to share? Are you waiting and hoping someone else will ask first? Please don’t wait! Initiate!

  ~Jack Canfield

  Who You Are Makes a Difference

  Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement — and we will make the goal.

  ~Jerome Fleishman

  A teacher in New York decided to honor her seniors in high school by telling them the difference they each made. Using a process developed by Helice Bridges of Del Mar, California, she called each student to the front of the class, one at a time. First she told them they made a difference to her and the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters that read, “Who I Am Makes a Difference.”

  Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgment ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honored whom and report back to the class in about a week.

  One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt. Then he gave him two extra ribbons, and said, “We’re doing a class project on recognition, and we’d like you to go out, find somebody to honor, give them a blue ribbon, then give them the extra blue ribbon so they can acknowledge a third person to keep this acknowledgment ceremony going. Then please report back to me and tell me what happened.”

  Later that day the junior executive went in to see his boss, who had been noted, by the way, as being kind of a grouchy fellow. He sat his boss down and he told him that he deeply admired him for being a creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the blue ribbon and give him permission to put it on him. His surprised boss said, “Well, sure.”

  The junior executive took the blue ribbon and placed it right on his boss’s jacket above his heart. As he gave him the last extra ribbon, he said, “Would you do me a favor? Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honoring somebody else? The young boy who first gave me the ribbons is doing a project in school and we want to keep this recognition ceremony going and find out how it affects people.” That night the boss went home to his 14-year-old son and sat him down. He said, “The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of the junior executives came in and told me he admired me and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine. He thinks I’m a creative genius. Then he put this blue ribbon that says ‘Who I Am Makes a Difference’ on my jacket above my heart. He gave me an extra ribbon and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was driving home tonight, I started thinking about whom I would honor with this ribbon and I thought about you. I want to honor you.

  “My days are really hectic and when I come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess, but somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You’re a great kid and I love you!”

  The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn't stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, "I was planning on committing suicide tomorrow, Dad, because I didn't think you loved me. Now I don't need to."

  ~Helice Bridges

  One at a Time

  We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean.

  But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

  ~Mother Teresa

  A friend of ours was walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset. As he walked along, he began to see another man in the distance. As he grew nearer, he noticed that the man kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things out into the ocean.

  As our friend approached even closer, he noticed that the man was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time, he was throwing them back into the water.

  Our friend was puzzled. He approached the man and said, “Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing.”

  “I’m throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it’s low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don’t throw them back into the sea, they’ll die up here from lack of oxygen.”

  “I understand,” my friend replied, “but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. You can’t possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. And don’t you realize this is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast? Can’t you see that you can’t possibly make a difference?”

  The man smiled, bent down, and picked up yet another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he replied, "Made a difference to that one!"

  ~Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

  The Gift

  How beautiful a day can be

  When kindness touches it!

  ~George Elliston

  Bennett Cerf relates this touching story about a bus that was bumping along a back road in the South.

  In one seat a wispy old man sat holding a bunch of fresh flowers. Across the aisle was a young girl whose eyes came back again and again to the man’s flowers. The time came for the old man to get off. Impulsively he thrust the flowers into the girl’s lap.

  “I can see you love the flowers,” he explained, “and I think my wife would like for you to have them. I’ll tell her I gave them to you.” The girl accepted the flowers, then watched the old man get off the bus and walk through the gate of a small cemetery.

  ~As told by Bennett Cerf

  A Brother Like That

  Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.

  ~Marc Brown

  A friend of mine named Paul received an automobile from his brother as a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it. “Is this your car, Mister?” he asked.

  Paul nodded. “My brother gave it to me for Christmas.” The boy was astounded. “You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn’t cost you nothing? Boy, I wish...” He hesitated.

  Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the lad said jarred Paul all the way down to his heels.

  “I wish,” the boy went on, “that I could be a brother like that.” Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively he added, “Would you like to take a
ride in my automobile?” “Oh yes, I’d love that.”

  After a short ride, the boy turned and with his eyes aglow, said, “Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?”

  Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again. “Will you stop where those two steps are?” the boy asked.

  He ran up the steps. Then in a little while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little crippled brother. He sat him down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up against him and pointed to the car.

  “There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn’t cost him a cent. And some day I’m gonna give you one just like it... then you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the Christmas windows that I’ve been trying to tell you about.”

  Paul got out and lifted the lad to the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable holiday ride.

  That Christmas Eve, Paul learned what Jesus meant when he said: “It is more blessed to give...”

  ~Dan Clark

  On Courage

  A brother is a friend given by Nature.

  ~Jean Baptiste Legouvé

  “So you think I’m courageous?” she asked. “Yes, I do.”

  “Perhaps I am. But that’s because I’ve had some inspiring teachers. I’ll tell you about one of them.

  Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liza who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, ‘Yes, I’ll do it if it will save Liza.’

  “As the transfusion progressed, he lay in a bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, ‘Will I start to die right away?’

  “Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood.

  “Yes, I’ve learned courage,” she added, “because I've had inspiring teachers.”

  ~Dan Millman

  Big Ed

  Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.

  ~Doug Larson

  When I arrived in the city to present a seminar on Tough-Minded Management, a small group of people took me to dinner to brief me on the people I would talk to the next day.

  The obvious leader of the group was Big Ed, a large burly man with a deep rumbling voice. At dinner he informed me that he was a troubleshooter for a huge international organization. His job was to go into certain divisions or subsidiaries to terminate the employment of the executive in charge.

  “Joe,” he said, “I’m really looking forward to tomorrow because all of the guys need to listen to a tough guy like you. They’re gonna find out that my style is the right one.” He grinned and winked.

  I smiled. I knew the next day was going to be different from what he was anticipating.

  The next day he sat impassively all through the seminar and left at the end without saying anything to me.

  Three years later I returned to that city to present another management seminar to approximately the same group. Big Ed was there again. At about ten o’clock he suddenly stood up and asked loudly,

  “Joe, can I say something to these people?”

  I grinned and said, “Sure. When anybody is as big as you are, Ed, he can say anything he wants.”

  Big Ed went on to say, “All of you guys know me and some of you know what’s happened to me. I want to share it, however, with all of you. Joe, I think you’ll appreciate it by the time I’ve finished.

  “When I heard you suggest that each of us, in order to become really tough-minded, needed to learn to tell those closest to us that we really loved them, I thought it was a bunch of sentimental garbage. I wondered what in the world that had to do with being tough. You had said toughness is like leather, and hardness is like granite, that the tough mind is open, resilient, disciplined and tenacious. But I couldn’t see what love had to do with it.

  “That night, as I sat across the living room from my wife, your words were still bugging me. What kind of courage would it take to tell my wife I loved her? Couldn’t anybody do it? You had also said this should be in the daylight and not in the bedroom. I found myself clearing my throat and starting and then stopping. My wife looked up and asked me what I had said, and I answered, ‘Oh nothing.’ Then suddenly, I got up, walked across the room, nervously pushed her newspaper aside and said, ‘Alice, I love you.’ For a minute she looked startled. Then the tears came to her eyes and she said softly,

  ‘Ed, I love you, too, but this is the first time in 25 years you’ve said it like that.’

  “We talked a while about how love, if there’s enough of it, can dissolve all kinds of tensions, and suddenly I decided on the spur of the moment to call my older son in New York. We have never really communicated well. When I got him on the phone, I blurted out,

  ‘Son, you’re liable to think I’m drunk, but I’m not. I just thought I’d call you and tell you I love you.’

  “There was a pause at his end and then I heard him say quietly,

  ‘Dad, I guess I’ve known that, but it’s sure good to hear. I want you to know I love you, too.’ We had a good chat and then I called my younger son in San Francisco. We had been closer. I told him the same thing and this, too, led to a real fine talk like we’d never really had.

  “As I lay in bed that night thinking, I realized that all the things you’d talked about that day — real management nuts and bolts — took on extra meaning, and I could get a handle on how to apply them if I really understood and practiced tough-minded love.

  “I began to read books on the subject. Sure enough, Joe, a lot of great people had a lot to say, and I began to realize the enormous practicality of applied love in my life, both at home and at work.

  “As some of you guys here know, I really changed the way I work with people. I began to listen more and to really hear. I learned what it was like to try to get to know people’s strengths rather than dwelling on their weaknesses. I began to discover the real pleasure of helping build their confidence. Maybe the most important thing of all was that I really began to understand that an excellent way to show love and respect for people was to expect them to use their strengths to meet objectives we had worked out together.

  “Joe, this is my way of saying thanks. Incidentally, talk about practical! I’m now executive vice-president of the company and they call me a pivotal leader. Okay, you guys, now listen to this guy!”

  ~Joe Batten

  Love and the Cabbie

  You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.

  ~John Wooden

  I was in New York the other day and rode with a friend in a taxi. When we got out, my friend said to the driver, “Thank you for the ride. You did a superb job of driving.”

  The taxi driver was stunned for a second. Then he said, “Are you a wise guy or something?”

  “No, my dear man, and I’m not putting you on. I admire the way you keep cool in heavy traffic.”

  “Yeah,” the driver said and drove off. “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “I am trying to bring love back to New York,” he said. “I believe it’s the only thing that can save the city.”

  “How can one man save New York?”

  “It’s not one m
an. I believe I have made that taxi driver’s day. Suppose he has 20 fares. He’s going to be nice to those 20 fares because someone was nice to him. Those fares in turn will be kinder to their employees or shopkeepers or waiters or even their own families. Eventually the goodwill could spread to at least 1,000 people. Now that isn’t bad, is it?”

  “But you’re depending on that taxi driver to pass your goodwill to others.”

  “I’m not depending on it,” my friend said. “I’m aware that the system isn’t foolproof so I might deal with 10 different people today. If out of 10 I can make three happy, then eventually I can indirectly influence the attitudes of 3,000 more.”

  “It sounds good on paper,” I admitted, “but I’m not sure it works in practice.”

  “Nothing is lost if it doesn’t. It didn’t take any of my time to tell that man he was doing a good job. He neither received a larger tip nor a smaller tip. If it fell on deaf ears, so what? Tomorrow there will be another taxi driver I can try to make happy.”

  “You’re some kind of a nut,” I said.

  “That shows how cynical you have become. I have made a study of this. The thing that seems to be lacking, besides money of course, for our postal employees, is that no one tells people who work for the post office what a good job they’re doing.”

  “But they’re not doing a good job.”

  “They’re not doing a good job because they feel no one cares if they do or not. Why shouldn’t someone say a kind word to them?”

  We were walking past a structure in the process of being built and passed five workmen eating their lunch. My friend stopped. “That’s a magnificent job you men have done. It must be difficult and dangerous work.”

  The workmen eyed my friend suspiciously. “When will it be finished?”

  “June,” a man grunted.

  “Ah. That really is impressive. You must all be very proud.”