Chicken Soup for the Soul: All Your Favorite Original Stories

by Jack Canfield

  I should not trifle with how Aaron understands life and death because I want him to have a solid sense of structure, a sense of the permanence of things. It’s obvious what a good job the nuns and priests did with me. It was agony or bliss. Heaven and hell were not connected by long distance service. You were on God’s team or you were in the soup, and the soup was hot. I don’t want Aaron to get burned, but I want him to have a strong frame. The neurotic but unavoidable anxiety can come later.

  Is that possible? It is possible to have a sense that God, spirit, karma, Y*H*W*H, something — is transcendent, without traumatizing the presentness of a person, without beating it into them? Can we have our cake and eat it too, ontologically speaking? Or is their fragile sensibility, their “there-ness,” sundered by such an act?

  Sensing a slight increase in agitation on the table, I know that Aaron is becoming bored with his guy. With an attitude of drama benefiting the moment, I clear my throat and begin with a professional tone.

  “Aaron, death is something that some people believe....”

  “Dad,” Aaron interrupts, “could we play a video game? It’s not a very violent game,” he explains, hands gesticulating. “It’s not like a killing game. The guys just kind of flop over.”

  “Yes,” I say with some relief, “let’s play video games. But first there’s something else we have to do.”

  “What?” Aaron stops and turns from where he has run, already halfway to the arcade.

  “First, let’s have some ice cream.”

  Another perfect Saturday for a perfect family. For now.

  ~Michael Murphy

  Reproduced by Special Permission of Playboy magazine: Copyright ©1971 by Playboy.

  Just Say It!

  If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

  ~Stephen Levine

  One night, after reading one of the hundreds of parenting books I’ve read, I was feeling a little guilty because the book had described some parenting strategies I hadn’t used in a while. The main strategy was to talk with your child and use those three magic words: “I love you.” It had stressed over and over that children need to know unconditionally and unequivocally that you really love them.

  I went upstairs to my son’s bedroom and knocked on the door. As I knocked, all I could hear were his drums. I knew he was there but he wasn’t answering. So I opened the door and, sure enough, there he was sitting with his earphones on, listening to a tape and playing his drums. After I leaned over to get his attention, I said to him, “Tim, have you got a second?”

  He said, “Oh sure, Dad. I’m always good for one.” We proceeded to sit down and after about 15 minutes and a lot of small talk and stuttering, I just looked at him and said, “Tim, I really love the way you play drums.” He said, “Oh, thanks, Dad, I appreciate it.”

  I walked out the door and said, “See you later!” As I was walking downstairs, it dawned on me that I went up there with a certain message and had not delivered it. I felt it was really important to get back up there and have another chance to say those three magic words.

  Again I climbed the stairs, knocked on the door and opened it. “You got a second, Tim?”

  “Sure, Dad. I’m always good for a second or two. What do you need?”

  “Son, the first time I came up here to share a message with you, something else came out. It really wasn’t what I wanted to share with you. Tim, do you remember when you were learning how to drive, it caused me a lot of problems? I wrote three words and slipped them under your pillow in hopes that would take care of it. I’d done my part as a parent and expressed my love to my son.” Finally after a little small talk, I looked at Tim and said, “What I want you to know is that we love you.”

  He looked at me and said, “Oh, thanks, Dad. That’s you and Mom?”

  I said, “Yeah, that’s both of us, we just don’t express it enough.” He said, “Thanks, that means a lot. I know you do.”

  I turned around and walked out the door. As I was walking downstairs, I started thinking, “I can’t believe this. I’ve already been up there twice — I know what the message is and yet something else comes out of my mouth.”

  I decided I’m going back there now and let Tim know exactly how I feel. He’s going to hear it directly from me. I don’t care if he is six feet tall! So back I go, knock on the door and he yells “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me who it is. Could that be you, Dad?”

  I said, “How’d you know that?” and he responded, “I’ve known you ever since you were a parent, Dad.”

  Then I said “Son, have you got just one more second?”

  “You know I’m good for one, so come on in. I suppose you didn’t tell me what you wanted to tell me?”

  I said, “How’d you know that?”

  “I’ve known you ever since I was in diapers.”

  I said, “Well, here it is, Tim, what I’ve been holding back on. I just want to express to you how special you are to our family. It’s not what you do, and it’s not what you’ve done, like all the things you’re doing with the junior high kids in town. It’s who you are as a person. I love you and I just wanted you to know I love you, and I don’t know why I hold back on something so important.”

  He looked at me and he said, “Hey, Dad, I know you do and it’s really special hearing you say it to me. Thanks so much for your thoughts, as well as the intent.” As I was walking out the door, he said, “Oh, hey, Dad. Have you got another second?”

  I started thinking, “Oh no. What’s he going to say to me?” I said, “Oh sure. I’m always good for one.”

  I don’t know where kids get this — I’m sure it couldn’t be from their parents, but he said, “Dad, I just want to ask you one question.”

  I said, “What’s that?”

  He looked at me and said, “Dad, have you been to a workshop or something like that?”

  I’m thinking, “Oh no, like any other 18-year-old, he’s got my number,” and I said, “No, I was reading a book, and it said how important it is to tell your kids how you really feel about them.”

  “Hey, thanks for taking the time. Talk to you later, Dad.”

  I think what Tim taught me, more than anything else that night is that the only way you can understand the real meaning and purpose of love is to be willing to pay the price. You have to go out there and risk sharing it.

  ~Gene Bedley

  A Legacy of Love

  Always kiss your children goodnight — even if they’re already asleep.

  ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  As a young man, Al was a skilled artist, a potter. He had a wife and two fine sons. One night, his older son developed a severe stomachache. Thinking it was only some common intestinal disorder, neither Al nor his wife took the condition very seriously. But the malady was actually acute appendicitis, and the boy died that night.

  Knowing the death could have been prevented if he had only realized the seriousness of the situation, Al’s emotional health deteriorated under the enormous burden of his guilt. To make matters worse his wife left him a short time later, leaving him alone with his six-year-old younger son. The hurt and pain of the two situations were more than Al could handle, and he turned to alcohol to help him cope. In time Al became an alcoholic.

  As the alcoholism progressed, Al began to lose everything he possessed — his home, his land, his art objects, everything. Eventually Al died alone in a San Francisco motel room.

  When I heard of Al’s death, I reacted with the same disdain the world shows for one who ends his life with nothing material to show for it. “What a complete failure!” I thought. “What a totally wasted life!”

  As time went by, I began to re-evaluate my earlier harsh judgment. You see, I knew Al’s now adult son, Ernie. He is one of the kindest, most caring, most loving men I have ever known. I watched Ernie with his children and saw the free flow of love between them. I knew that kindness and car
ing had to come from somewhere.

  I hadn’t heard Ernie talk much about his father. It is so hard to defend an alcoholic. One day I worked up my courage to ask him. “I’m really puzzled by something,” I said. “I know your father was basically the only one to raise you. What on earth did he do that you became such a special person?”

  Ernie sat quietly and reflected for a few moments. Then he said, “From my earliest memories as a child until I left home at 18, Al came into my room every night, gave me a kiss and said, ‘I love you, son.’”

  Tears came to my eyes as I realized what a fool I had been to judge Al as a failure. He had not left any material possessions behind. But he had been a kind loving father, and he left behind one of the finest, most giving men I have ever known.

  ~Bobbie Gee

  Winning the Image Game

  On Learning

  Learning is finding out what you already know.

  Doing is demonstrating that you know it.

  Teaching is reminding others that they know it just as well as you.

  You are all learners, doers, teachers.

  ~Richard Bach

  Controlled Arrogance

  The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases

  is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated.

  ~Plato

  Surgery is controlled arrogance. Considering a heart surgeon needs to take a band saw through a patient’s breastbone in order to help him or her, confidence is more essential than politeness, humbleness and a slew of other socially rewarded attributes. But the operative word to describe surgeons is “controlled,” not “arrogance,” and our patients teach us the difference. The wisdom needed to offer true healing comes from listening to clues continually offered by people willing to risk their lives by trusting our judgment.

  That includes people like Frank, who arrived at my hospital unconscious and barely alive, with a breathing tube down his throat and industrial strength drugs being pumped into both his swollen arms. A 52-year-old truck driver, Frank had suffered a massive heart attack — the leading cause of death in the U.S. — after sanding snowy roads during a 36-hour storm. Historically, his chances of surviving were less than 10 percent. But, today, we have mechanical pumps to support damaged hearts, and Frank Jones lived after undergoing this massive surgery. Modern medicine had worked. Or had it?

  While I was busy giving myself a rotator cuff injury congratulating myself on the remarkable success of my operation, Frank was livid that we had saved him. More importantly, Frank was suicidal. He was a deeply religious person who believed that once he had lost his use and purpose in life, he should have been allowed to die with dignity.

  Depression would cause Frank’s immune cells to stop functioning normally and increase his risk of infection. It could even increase his mortality rate after successful heart surgery. Large studies have revealed that pessimistic people’s worst fears often come true despite the medical facts, a frustrating reality for physicians.

  I needed to search past high-tech solutions to save Frank and delve into the low-tech arena of love and faith. After brainstorming with my patient’s wife, we brought his minister to the hospital, who convinced Frank to make the church his life. He became a model patient and even began working as an evangelist for the Christian Motorcycle Association, helping gangs, because, in his words, “society has turned its back on them.”

  Patients like Frank are not described in my medical textbooks, but I have learned much about healing from them. I entered medicine with the naïve belief that we knew most everything we needed to cure the sick and that high-technology solutions would close the few remaining gaps in our healing armamentarium. My specialty, heart surgery, was a spectacular example of this modern success story. After all, if the heart literally breaks, we can even replace it with a new one — the ultimate fix. But once I was on the inside of medicine looking out, I learned that there were many things left to discover.

  I did not yet understand at a visceral level the poetic significance of this organ. When the heart fails, people feel betrayed. How could they be worthy of life if their own internal metronome has abandoned them? Even the immune response that their bodies create against the newly transplanted organs is called “rejection” — exactly how the patient feels.

  But I soon began to understand that the answers to wellness frequently lay with my patients themselves. They willingly became our research laboratory. The results profoundly changed my views on healing and yield lessons for all America.

  When people are desperately gripping the precipice of death, they look for any solution that can pull them back onto the safe plain of life. Many of these tools come from faraway lands, where they have provided a foundation of healing for millennia. Some call these approaches alternative, integrative or complementary medicine, but I believe that they all represent the globalization of health. Let’s take the best healing lessons from all our ancestors and societies and share the wisdom that, like our hearts, pounds life into our souls.

  ~Mehmet Oz, MD

  I Am Happiness

  Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

  ~Abraham Lincoln

  I once witnessed a most delightful conversation between a mother and her young daughter. The whole conversation lasted barely a minute, and yet I have never forgotten it. It happened while I was sitting in a busy terminal at the New Delhi international airport, in India, waiting for my flight to be announced. The mother and her daughter, who was named Angela, were sitting opposite me. Angela, who was about three years old, was talking and drawing, talking and eating, talking and reading. Meanwhile, her mother was busy sorting out plane tickets and passports.

  Although I could hear Angela talking, I wasn’t really listening to what she was saying until she suddenly announced, “I am happiness, Mummy.” The words caught my ear. And I found myself smiling. What a great thought, I thought to myself. After that, Angela leaned over and tugged on her mother’s T-shirt so as to get her full attention.

  “I am happiness, Mummy,” said Angela. “What, darling?” her mother asked

  “I am happiness, Mummy,” repeated Angela.

  “No, darling. What you mean to say is, ‘I am happy,’” explained her mother.

  “No, Mummy,” explained Angela. “I am happiness.”

  By now, I noticed that several other passengers were listening in on the conversation. Angela’s mother noticed also. She was a little embarrassed, but we all realized just how sweet and funny the moment was.

  “I — am — happy,” said Angela’s mother in a slow and deliberate voice.

  “I — am — happiness,” replied Angela in a slow and deliberate voice.

  Her mother smiled. “Okay, Angela, you are happiness.”

  “Yes, Mummy, I am happiness,” said Angela, nodding her head. And that was it. A short and sweet conversation finished as suddenly as it had started. But it really got me thinking.

  How would you live your life if you knew you were already happy? Imagine how you would be. Imagine how good you would feel if you knew that your original nature is already happy. Imagine exactly how you would greet each new day knowing that you are what you seek. Imagine how much love and healing you would experience if you changed the purpose of your relationships from finding happiness to sharing happiness. Imagine how fantastic and successful you’d be if you followed your joy and you let your happiness shine through you. Imagine how you would be.

  Imagine if, just for one moment, you surrendered completely to the original joy of your true nature. What a baptism that would be! Imagine how freeing it would be if you no longer needed the world to make you happy. What a blessing for all! Imagine how rich you would feel knowing your happiness is not separate from you and hidden away inside some external thing. Imagine how your attitude toward money would change. Imagine how much you would let yourself relax and enjoy each moment if you knew your joy is always with you
and not someplace else. Imagine how your attitude to time would change. Imagine how you would be.

  Imagine if every day you were to let the original joy of your being bless you and refresh you. Imagine if you made the purpose of your life not to get happiness but to spread happiness. Imagine how much you would enjoy yourself. Imagine how generous you would be. Imagine how kind you would be. Imagine what a great friend you would be. If you lived your life in the knowledge that your being is already happy, you would be free to be the person you “came to be.” Being already happy, you would not be afraid to love. In fact, you would probably become the most loving person you could possibly imagine.

  Imagine how that would be.

  ~Robert Holden

  From Be Happy: Release the Power of Happiness in You © 2009 by Robert Holden.

  Published by Hay House; available at www.hayhouse.com.

  A Light in the Darkness

  Sadness flies on the wings of the morning

  and out of the heart of darkness comes the light.

  ~Jean Giraudoux

  On December 14, 2012, to the collective shock of the world, twenty young children and six adults were killed in the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting. When I first heard about the event, I felt the same feelings we all feel when such tragedy happens, grief, sadness, anger, doubt about this world — but this time, with this shooting in particular, something was different.

  Because I live in Newtown, Connecticut.

  We’ve all heard the phrase “a little too close for comfort” or “too close to home” and in this case, it finally came true for me. No longer could I just watch on the news and say, “How sad...” as something happened yet again, in another town, another country, somewhere else. This time, it hit home, literally, and I could no longer allow myself to ignore the fact that at the deepest level, something had to change and I had to do whatever I could to play my part in that change.