A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul

by Jack Canfield

  "For He's Free At Last."

  Willa Perrier

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  Nothing but Problems

  The man who has no problems is out of the game.

  Elbert Hubbard

  On Christmas Eve 1993, Norman Vincent Peale, the author of the all-time bestseller The Power of Positive Thinking, died at age 95. He was at home surrounded by love, peace and tender care. Norman Vincent Peale deserved nothing less. His positive-thinking ministry had brought peace and renewed confidence to generations of people who realized from his sermons, speeches, radio shows and books that we are responsible for the condition we're in. Since he felt God did not make junk, Norman reminded us that we have two choices every morning when we wake up: we can choose to feel good about ourselves or choose to feel lousy. I can still hear Norman clearly shouting out, "Why would you choose the latter?"

  I first met Norman in July 1986. Larry Hughes, who was president of my publishing company, William Morrow & Co., had suggested we think about writing a book together on ethics. We decided to do that, and the next two years working with Norman on The Power of Ethical Management was one of the greatest

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  delights I have ever had in my life.

  Ever since that first meeting, Norman had a great impact on my life. He always contended that positive thinkers get positive results because they are not afraid of problems. In fact, rather than thinking of a problem as something that is negative and ought to be removed as quickly as possible, Norman felt problems were a sign of life. To illustrate that point, here is one of his favorite stories, one I have used frequently in my presentations:

  One day I was walking down the street, when I saw my friend George approaching. It was evident from his downtrodden look that he wasn't overflowing with the ecstasy and exuberance of human existence, which is a high-class way of saying George was dragging bottom.

  Naturally I asked him, "How are you, George?" While that was meant to be a routine inquiry, George took me very seriously and for 15 minutes he enlightened me on how bad he felt. And the more he talked, the worse I felt.

  Finally I said to him, "Well, George, I'm sorry to see you in such a depressed state. How did you get this way?" That really set him off.

  "It's my problems," he said. "Problemsnothing but problems. I'm fed up with problems. If you could get rid of all my problems, I would contribute $5, 000 to your favorite charity."

  Well now, I am never one to turn a deaf ear to such an offer, and so I meditated, ruminated and cogitated on the proposition and came up with an answer that I thought was pretty good.

  I said, "Yesterday I went to a place where thousands of people reside. As far as I could determine, not one of them has any problems. Would you like to go there?"

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  "When can we leave? That sounds like my kind of place," answered George.

  "If that's the case, George," I said, "I'll be happy to take you tomorrow to Woodlawn Cemetery because the only people I know who don't have any problems are dead."

  I love that story. It really puts life in perspective. I heard Norman say many times, "If you have no problems at allI warn youyou're in grave jeopardyyou're on the way out and you don't know it! If you don't believe you have any problems, I suggest that you immediately race from wherever you are, jump into your car and drive home as fast but as safely as possible, run into your house, and go straight to your bedroom and slam the door. Then get on your knees and pray, 'What's the matter, Lord? Don't you trust me anymore? Give me some problems.'"

  Ken Blanchard

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  Angels Never Say "Hello!"

  My grandma told me about angels. She said they come knocking at the door of our hearts, trying to deliver a message to us. I saw them in my mind's eye with a big mail sack slung between their wings and a post office cap set jauntily on their head. I wondered if the stamps on their letters said "Heaven Express."

  "No use waiting for the angel to open your door," Grandma explained. "You see, there is only one door handle on the door of your heart. Only one bolt. They are on the inside. Your side. You must listen for the angel, throw open the lock and open up that door!"

  I loved the story and asked her again and again to tell me, "What does the angel do then?"

  "The angel never says 'hello.' You reach out and take the message, and the angel gives you your instructions: 'Arise and go forth!' Then the angel flies away. It is your responsibility to take action."

  When I am interviewed by the media, I am often asked how I have built several international businesses without any college education, beginning my business on foot, pushing my two children before me in a dilapidated baby stroller with a wheel that kept coming off.

  First I tell the interviewers that I read at least six books a week, and have done so since I was able to read. I hear the voices of all the great achievers in their books.

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  Next, I explain that every time I hear an angel knock, I just fling open the door. The angel's messages are about new business ideas, books to write and wonderful solutions to problems in my career and personal life. They come very often, in a never-ending flow, a river of ideas.

  However, there was one time when the knocking stopped. It happened when my daughter, Lilly, was badly hurt in an accident. She was riding on the back of a forklift her father rented to move some hay for our horses. Lilly and two of the neighbor children begged him to let them ride on the forklift when he took it back to the rental place.

  Going down a little hill, the steering gear broke. Her father almost pulled his arms out of their sockets trying to hold the big rig on the road before it turned over. The little neighbor girl broke her arm. Lilly's father was knocked unconscious. Lilly was pinned underneath, with the huge weight of the rig on her left hand. Gasoline spilled on her thigh. Gasoline burns, even if it is not ignited. The neighbor boy was unhurt and kept his wits. He ran out and stopped traffic.

  We rushed Lilly to Orthopedic Hospital where they began a long series of operations, each time amputating more of her hand. They told me that when a human limb is cut off, sometimes it can be sewn back on, but not if it is smashed and crushed.

  Lilly had just started piano lessons. Because I am a writer, I had looked forward with great anticipation to her taking typing lessons the next year.

  During this time I often drove off by myself to cry, not wanting others to see me. I couldn't stop. I found I did not have the concentration to read anything. No angels knocked. There was a heavy silence in my heart. I kept thinking of all the things Lilly would

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  never do because of this terrible accident.

  When we took her back to the hospital for the eighth amputation, my spirit was very low. I kept thinking over and over, "She will never type! Never type. Never type."

  We set her bag down in the hospital room and suddenly turned around because a young teenage girl in the next bed said to us in a commanding voice: "I've been waiting for you! You go down the hall right now, third room on the left! There is a boy there who was hurt in a motorcycle accident. You go down there and lift up his spirit, right now!"

  She had the voice of a field marshal. We immediately obeyed her. We talked to the boy and encouraged him, and then came back to Lilly's hospital room.

  For the first time I noticed that this unusual girl was bent way over. "Who are you?" I asked.

  "My name is Tony Daniels," she grinned. "I go to the handicapped high school. This time the doctors are going to make me a whole inch taller! You see, I had polio. I have had many operations."

  She had the charisma and strength of a General Schwartzkopf. I couldn't help the words that came flying out of my mouth. I gasped, "But you aren't handicapped!"

  "Oh, yes, you are right," she replied, looking sideways at me. "They teach us down at our school that we are never handicapped as long as we can help someone else. Now, if you met my schoolmate who teaches the typing class, you might think she is handicap
ped because she was born with no arms and no legs. But she helps all of us by teaching us typing, with a wand between her teeth."

  Ka bang! Suddenly I heard itthe clanging noise of pounding and kicking and yelling at the door of my heart!

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  I ran out of the room and down the corridor to find a pay phone. I called IBM and asked for the office manager. I told him my little girl had lost nearly all of her left hand, and asked him if they had one-hand touch-typing charts.

  He replied, 'Yes, we do! We have charts for the right hand, the left hand, charts that show how to use your feet with pedals, and even to type with a wand between your teeth. The charts are free. Where would you like me to send them?"

  When we were finally able to take Lilly back to school, I took the one-hand typing charts with me. Her hand and arm were still in a cast with big bandages around it. I asked the school principal if Lilly could take typing, even though she was too young, instead of gym. He told me it had never been done before, and that perhaps the typing teacher would not want to go to the extra trouble, but I could ask him if I wanted to.

  When I stepped into the typing class I noticed immediately that all around the room were signs with quotations from Florence Nightingale, Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Winston Churchill. I took a deep breath, realizing I was in the right place. The teacher said he had never taught one-hand typing before but that he would work with Lilly every lunch period. "We will learn one-hand touch-typing together."

  Soon Lilly touch-typed all of her homework for her English class. Her English teacher that year was a polio victim. His right arm hung helplessly by his side. He scolded her, "Your mother is babying you, Lilly. You have a good right hand. You do your own homework."

  "Oh, no sir." She smiled at him. "I'm up to 50 words a minute one-handed in my touch-typing. I have the one-hand IBM charts!"

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  The English teacher sat down suddenly. Then he said slowly, "Being able to type has always been my dream."

  "Come on over during lunch time. The back of my charts have the other hand. I'll teach you!" Lilly told him.

  It was after the first lunch-time lesson that she came home and said, "Mama, Tony Daniels was right. I'm not handicapped anymore, because I am helping someone else fulfill his dream."

  Today, Lilly is the author of two internationally acclaimed books. She has taught all of our office staff to use our Apple computers with our mouse pad on the left side, because that is where she makes hers fly around with her remaining finger and the stump of her thumb.

  Shush. Listen! Do you hear the knocking? Throw the bolt! Open the door! Please think of me and remember: Angels never say "hello." Their greeting is always "Arise and go forth!"

  Dottie Walters

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  Why Do These Things Have to Happen?

  We are all pencils in the hand of God.

  Mother Teresa

  One of my joys and passions is my voice. I love to perform in our local community theaters. My throat became very sore during a particularly grueling show run. It was my first time performing an operatic piece, and I was terrified I had actually done damage to my vocal cords. I was a lead and we were about to open. So I made an appointment with my family doctor where I waited for an hour. I finally left in a huff, went back to work, grabbed a phone book and found a throat specialist close by. Once more I made an appointment and off I went.

  The nurse showed me in and I sat down to wait for the doctor. I was feeling very disgruntled. I rarely get sick and here I was sick when I needed to be healthy. Besides, I had to take time out of my workday to go to two different doctors, both of whom kept me waiting. It was very frustrating. Why do these things have to happen? A moment later the nurse came back in and said, "May I ask you something personal?"

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  This seemed odd; what else do they ask you but personal questions in a doctor's office? But I looked at the nurse and replied, ''Yes, of course."

  "I noticed your hand," she said a bit hesitantly.

  I lost half of my left hand in a forklift accident when I was 11. I think it is one of the reasons I didn't follow my dream of performing in theater, although everyone says, "'Gee, I never noticed! You are so natural." In the back of my mind I thought that they only wanted to see perfect people on stage. No one would want to see me. Besides, I'm too tall, overweight, not really talented . . . no, they don't want to see me. But I love musical comedies and I do have a good voice. So one day I tried out at our local community theater. I was the first one they cast! That was three years ago. Since then, I have been cast in almost everything I tried out for.

  The nurse continued, "What I need to know is how it has affected your life."

  Never in the 25 years since it happened has someone asked me this. Maybe they'll say, "Does it bother you?" but never anything as sweeping as, "How has it affected your life?"

  After an awkward pause, she said, "You see I just had a baby, and her hand is like yours. I, well, I need to know how it has affected your life."

  "How has it affected my life?" I thought about it a bit so I could think of the right words to say. Finally, I said, "It has affected my life, but not in a bad wayI do many things that people with two normal hands find difficult. I type about 75 words a minute, I play guitar, I have ridden and shown horses for years, I even have a Horsemaster Degree. I'm involved in musical theater and I am a professional speaker, I'm constantly in front of a crowd. I do television shows four or five times a year. I think it was never 'difficult' because of the love and encouragement of my family.

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  They always talked about all the great notoriety I would get because I would learn how to do things with one hand that most people had trouble doing with two. We were all very excited about that. That was the main focus, not the handicap.

  "Your daughter does not have a problem. She is normal. You are the one who will teach her to think of herself as anything else. She will come to know she is 'different,' but you will teach her that different is wonderful. Normal means you are average. What's fun about that?"

  She was silent for a while. Then she simply said, "Thank you" and walked out.

  I sat there thinking, "Why do these things have to happen?" Everything happens for a reasoneven that forklift falling on my hand. All the circumstances leading up to me being at this doctor's office and this moment in time happened for a reason.

  The doctor came in, looked at my throat and said he wanted to anesthetize and put a probe down it to examine it. Well, singers are very paranoid about putting medical instruments down their throats, especially ones so rough they need to be anesthetized! I said, "No thanks," and walked out.

  The next day, my throat was completely better.

  Why do these things have to happen?

  Lilly Walters

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  The Finest Steel Gets Sent Through the Hottest Furnace

  Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.

  Helen Keller

  I'll never forget the night in 1946 when disaster and challenge visited our home.

  My brother George came home from football practice and collapsed with a 104-degree temperature. After an examination, the doctor informed us it was polio. This was before the days of Dr. Salk; polio was well-known in Webster, Missouri, having killed and crippled many children and teenagers.

  After the crisis had passed, the doctor felt it was his duty to inform George of the horrible truth. "I hate to tell you this, son," he said, "but the polio has taken such a toll that you'll probably never walk again without a limp, and your left arm will be useless."