Chicken Soup for the Soul: All Your Favorite Original Stories

by Jack Canfield

  “Now,” she said triumphantly, “you can write your book!”

  “Yes,” replied the man, with sagging confidence, “and what shall we live on while I am writing it?”

  To his amazement, she opened a drawer and pulled out a substantial amount of money.

  “Where on earth did you get that?” he exclaimed.

  “I have always known you were a man of genius,” she told him. “I knew that someday you would write a masterpiece. So every week, out of the money you gave me for housekeeping, I saved a little bit. So here is enough to last us for one whole year.”

  From her trust and confidence came one of the greatest novels of American literature, The Scarlet Letter.

  ~Nido Qubein

  Walt Jones

  The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.

  ~Joseph Campbell

  No one better epitomizes the fact that success is a journey and not a destination than the many green and growing “human becomings” who do not allow age to be a deterrent to accomplishment. Florence Brooks joined the Peace Corps when she was 64 years of age. Gladys Clappison was living in the dormitory at the University of Iowa working on her Ph.D. in history at age 82. Then there was Ed Stitt, who at age 87, was working on his community college degree program in New Jersey. Ed said it kept him from getting “old-timers’ disease” and kept his brain alive.

  Probably no one person has stirred my imagination over the years more than Walt Jones of Tacoma, Washington. Walt outlived his third wife to whom he was married for 52 years. When she died, someone said to Walt that it must be sad losing such a long-time friend. His response was, “Well, of course it was, but then again it may be for the best.”

  “Why was that?”

  “I don’t want to be negative or say anything to defame her wonderful character, but she kind of petered out on me in the last decade.”

  When asked to explain, he went on to add, “She just never wanted to do nothin’, just kind of became a stick-in-the-mud. Ten years ago when I was 94, I told my wife we ain’t never seen nothin’ except the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She asked me what was on my mind, and I told her I was thinkin’ about buying a motor home and maybe we could visit all 48 of the contiguous states. ‘What do you think of that?’

  “She said, ‘I think you’re out of your mind, Walt.’

  “‘Whydya say that?’ I asked.

  “‘We’d get mugged out there. We’d die and there wouldn’t be a funeral parlor.’ Then she asked me, ‘Who’s going to drive, Walter?’ and I said, ‘I am, Lambie.’ ‘You’ll kill us!’ she said.

  “I’d like to make footprints in the sands of time before I check out, but you can’t make footprints in the sands of time if you’re sitting on your butt... unless your intent is to make buttprints in the sands of time.”

  “So now that she’s gone, Walt, what do you intend to do?”

  “What do I intend to do? I buried the old gal and bought me a motor home. This is 1976, and I intend to visit all 48 of the states to celebrate our bicentennial.”

  Walt got to 43 of the states that year selling curios and souvenirs. When asked if he ever picked up hitchhikers, he said, “No way. Too many of them will club you over the head for four bits or sue you for whiplash if you get into an accident.”

  Walt hadn’t had his motor home but a few months and his wife had only been buried for six months when he was seen driving down the street with a rather attractive 62-year-old woman at his side.

  “Walt?” he was asked. “Yeah,” he replied.

  “Who was the woman sitting by your side? Who’s your new lady friend, Walt?”

  To which he replied, “Yes, she is.” “Yes she is what?”

  “My lady friend.”

  “Lady friend? Walt, you’ve been married three times, you’re 104 years of age. This woman must be four decades younger than you.”

  “Well,” he responded, “I quickly discovered that man cannot live in a motor home alone.”

  “I can understand that, Walt. You probably miss having someone to talk to after having had a companion all these years.”

  Without hesitation Walt replied, “You know, I miss that, too.” “Too? Are you inferring that you have a romantic interest?”

  “I just might.” “Walt...” “What?” he said.

  “There comes a time in a person’s life when you knock off that stuff.”

  “Sex?” he replied. “Yes.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Well, because that kind of physical exertion could be hazardous to a person’s health.”

  Walt considered the question and said, “Well, if she dies, she dies.”

  In 1978 with double digit inflation heating up in our country, Walt was a major investor in a condominium development. When asked why he was taking his money out of a secure bank account and putting it into a condo development, he said, “Ain’t you heard? These are inflationary times. You’ve got to put your money into real property so it will appreciate and be around for your later years when you really need it.” How’s that for positive thinking?

  In 1980 he sold off a lot of his property in and around Pierce County, Washington. Many people thought Walt was cashing in his chips. He assembled his friends and quickly made it clear that he was not cashing in his chips, but he had sold off the property for cash flow. “I took a small down and a 30-year contract. I got four grand a month comin’ in until I’m 138.”

  He celebrated his 110th birthday on the Johnny Carson Show. He walked out resplendent in his white beard and black hat looking a little like the late Colonel Sanders, and Johnny says, “It’s good to have you here, Walt.”

  “It’s good to be anywhere at 110, Johnny.” “110?”

  “110.”

  “1-1-0?”

  “What’s the matter, Carson, you losin’ your hearin’? That’s what I said. That’s what I am. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is you’re within three days of being twice as old as I am.”

  That would get your attention, wouldn’t it? One hundred and ten years of age — a green, growing human becoming. Walt picked up the opening and quickly alluded to Johnny.

  “How old would you be if you didn’t know the date you were born and there weren’t no durned calendar to semi-depress you once a year? Ever heard of people getting depressed because of a calendar date? Oh, Lordy, I hit my 30th birthday. I’m so depressed, I’m over the hill. Oh, no, I hit my 40th birthday. Everybody in my work team dressed in black and sent a hearse to pick me up. Oh, no I’m 50 years old. Half a century old. They sent me dead roses with cobwebs. Johnny, who says you’re supposed to roll over and die when you’re 65? I have friends more prosperous since they were 75 than they were before. And as a result of a little condominium investment I made a few years ago, I’ve made more bucks since I was 105 than I did before. Can I give you my definition of depression, Johnny?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Missing a birthday.”

  May the story of Walt Jones inspire all of us to remain green and growing every day of our lives.

  ~Bob Moawad

  Are You Strong Enough to Handle Critics?

  No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

  ~Eleanor Roosevelt

  It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcomings, who knows the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph and who at worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows his place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

  ~Theodore Roosevelt

  Risking

  If you don’t tak
e risks, you’ll have a wasted soul.

  ~Drew Barrymore

  Two seeds lay side by side in the fertile spring soil.

  The first seed said, “I want to grow! I want to send my roots deep into the soil beneath me, and thrust my sprouts through the earth’s crust above me. I want to unfurl my tender buds like banners to announce the arrival of spring. I want to feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the blessing of the morning dew on my petals!”

  And so she grew.

  The second seed said, “I am afraid. If I send my roots into the ground below, I don’t know what I will encounter in the dark. If I push my way through the hard soil above me I may damage my delicate sprouts. What if I let my buds open and a snail tries to eat them? And if I were to open my blossoms, a small child may pull me from the ground. No, it is much better for me to wait until it is safe.”

  And so she waited.

  A yard hen scratching around in the early spring ground for food found the waiting seed and promptly ate it.

  MORAL OF THE STORY

  Those of us who refuse to risk and grow get swallowed up by life.

  ~Patty Hansen

  Try Something Different

  Fall seven times, stand up eight.

  ~Japanese Proverb

  When we first read the following story, we had just begun teaching a course called “The Million Dollar Forum,” a course designed to teach people to accelerate their income up to levels of a million dollars a year or more. Early on we discovered people get locked into a rut of trying harder without trying smarter. Trying harder doesn’t always work. Sometimes we need to do something radically different to achieve greater levels of success. We need to break out of our paradigm prisons, our habit patterns and our comfort zones.

  • • •

  I’m sitting in a quiet room at the Milcroft Inn, a peaceful little place hidden back among the pine trees about an hour out of Toronto. It’s just past noon, late July, and I’m listening to the desperate sounds of a life-or-death struggle going on a few feet away.

  There’s a small fly burning out the last of its short life’s energies in a futile attempt to fly through the glass of the windowpane. The whining wings tell the poignant story of the fly’s strategy: Try harder.

  But it’s not working.

  The frenzied effort offers no hope for survival. Ironically, the struggle is part of the trap. It is impossible for the fly to try hard enough to succeed at breaking through the glass. Nevertheless, this little insect has staked its life on reaching its goal through raw effort and determination.

  This fly is doomed. It will die there on the windowsill.

  Across the room, ten steps away, the door is open. Ten seconds of flying time and this small creature could reach the outside world it seeks. With only a fraction of the effort now being wasted, it could be free of this self-imposed trap. The breakthrough possibility is there. It would be so easy.

  Why doesn’t the fly try another approach, something dramatically different? How did it get so locked in on the idea that this particular route and determined effort offer the most promise for success? What logic is there in continuing until death to seek a breakthrough with more of the same?

  No doubt this approach makes sense to the fly. Regrettably, it’s an idea that will kill.

  Trying harder isn’t necessarily the solution to achieving more. It may not offer any real promise for getting what you want out of life. Sometimes, in fact, it’s a big part of the problem.

  If you stake your hopes for a breakthrough on trying harder than ever, you may kill your chances for success.

  ~Price Pritchett

  Service with a Smile

  The truth brings with it a great measure of absolution, always.

  ~R.D. Laing

  A man wrote a letter to a small hotel in a midwest town he planned to visit on his vacation. He wrote:

  I would very much like to bring my dog with me. He is well groomed and very well-behaved. Would you be willing to permit me to keep him in my room with me at night?

  An immediate reply came from the hotel owner, who said:

  I’ve been operating this hotel for many years. In all that time, I’ve never had a dog steal towels, bedclothes or silverware or pictures off the walls.

  I’ve never had to evict a dog in the middle of the night for being drunk and disorderly. And I’ve never had a dog run out on a hotel bill.

  Yes, indeed, your dog is welcome at my hotel. And, if your dog will vouch for you, you’re welcome to stay here, too.

  ~Karl Albrecht and Ron Zenke

  Service America

  Overcoming Obstacles

  Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

  ~Henry Ford

  The Blank Page

  Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.

  ~Ovid

  When you make an observation, you have an obligation. This is the piece of poetry that I try to live by. It’s the mantra that led me through rural Pennsylvania to conduct a creative writing workshop in prison — the pen.

  As I pulled up to the jail — a colorless lump of concrete strangled with jagged concertina wire — rain fell, flickering like old film. I remembered how my life had been transformed by a single blank page. Remembered how I showed up to Crefeld, an alternative school in Philadelphia, as a troubled teen who’d been expelled from everywhere else. Remembered how Stacey, the English teacher, placed a blank sheet of paper down in front of me and told me, simply, “Write.”

  “Write what?” I asked her.

  Stacey’s response — “anything you want” — changed my life.

  I stared at the blank page, an ocean of white glowing with possibility. Its blankness begged me to tell a story — dared me to share my own.

  But I couldn’t. I froze, terrified and uncomfortable. There were things I wanted to say, but my pen was stuck, my words trapped like water under an ice block. The distance between my mind and the page felt like it could’ve been measured in light-years.

  “It’s like there’s a wall,” I said.

  “Every wall is a door,” Stacey replied. “You don’t need to be great to get started, but you need to get started to be great.” Stacey transformed her observation of me into an obligation to me.

  Finally I gripped the pen. My hand shook and trembled like it was freezing. Then it hit me: a silence louder than all the music I’d ever heard. I took a breath, then exhaled — deep, like I just rose from under water.

  I stared so deep into the page that I saw myself. Then I felt something I’d never felt before: purpose. I realized that I am the blank page, that we are all blank pages.

  Because the blank page was the starter pistol that triggered my purpose, helping to take me from a juvenile delinquent to an award-winning writer, filmmaker, and professor, it was my hope to share the power and possibility of creative writing with the prisoners. I remembered the words of my mentor, Maya Angelou: “When you get, give. When you learn, teach.”

  Inside I huddled with an intense group of inmates, all young men, all bent on not being broken. After the workshop, I was taken to visit the cellblock where they spent the bulk of their days and nights. On my way out, I noticed that Jordan, a participant in the workshop who was suffering from writer’s block, had the only cell whose bed did not have a mattress.

  “No mattress?” I asked, puzzled.

  “I have one, but I don’t sleep on it,” he told me. “What do you sleep on?” I pried.

  “The hard floor, the steel frame, anywhere but not on this,” he asserted as he hunched beneath the bunk and flashed a flimsy mattress. “See,” he started, as he reburied the cot, “I can’t sleep on that. It’s too comfortable and I don’t trust comfort in a place like this.”

  For Jordan, certain comforts numbed him to the raspy reality of where he really was. He used his discomfort to remind him of where he was and where he wanted to go. I remembered my initial discomfort with the b
lank page, my writer’s block, and thought about where I am now. Then I thought about Jordan’s struggles, both on the page and off, and how through discomfort, tremendous growth is possible.

  When you make an observation, you have an obligation.

  Before I left, I handed Jordan a blank page.

  ~MK Asante

  Obstacles

  Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

  ~Seneca

  We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of his freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

  ~Viktor E. Frankl

  Man’s Search for Meaning

  Consider This

  To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.

  ~William James

  Consider this:

  After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, said, “Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little!” Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

  An expert said of Vince Lombardi: “He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation.”

  Socrates was called, “An immoral corrupter of youth.”

  When Peter J. Daniel was in the fourth grade, his teacher, Miss Phillips, constantly said, “Peter J. Daniel, you’re no good, you’re a bad apple and you’re never going to amount to anything.” Peter was virtually illiterate until he was 26. A friend stayed up with him all night and read him a copy of Think and Grow Rich. Now he owns the street corners he used to fight on and just published his latest book: Miss Phillips, You Were Wrong!