Chick13
Chicken Soup of the Soul
#13
Barriers
When I was little, Dibby's cousin had a dog, just mutt, and the dog was
pregnant. I don't know how long dogs
are pregnant, but she was due to have her puppies in about a week.
She was out in the yard one day and got in the way of
the lawn mower, and her two hind legs got cut off. They rushed her to the
vet and he said, "I can sew her up, or you
can put her to sleep if you want, but the puppies are okay.
"She'll be able to deliver the puppies." Dibby's cousin said, "Keep her
alive."
So the vet sewed her backside and over the next week the dog learned
to walk. She didn't spend any time worrying,
she just learned to walk by taking two steps in the front and flipping
up her backside, and then taking two steps and
flipping up her backside again. She gave birth to six little puppies,
all in perfect health. She nursed them and then
weaned them. And when they learned to walk, they all walked like her.
By Gilda Radner, from It's Always Something
from A Cup of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Barry Spilchuk
Laugh!
Many years ago, Norman Cousins was diagnosed as "terminally ill." He was
given six months to live. His
chance for recovery was one in 500.
He could see the worry, depression and anger in his life contributed
to, and perhaps helped cause, his disease.
He wondered, "If illness can be caused by negativity, can wellness be created
by positivity?"
He decided to make an experiment of himself. Laughter was one of the most
positive activities he knew. He rented
all the funny movies he could find - Keaton, Chaplin, Fields, the
Marx Brothers. (This was before VCRs, so he had
to rent the actual films.) He read funny stories. He asked his friends
to call him whenever they said, heard or did
something funny.
His pain was so great he could not sleep. Laughing for 10 solid minutes,
he found, relieved the pain for several
hours so he could sleep.
He fully recovered from his illness and lived another 20 happy, healthy
and productive years. (His journey is
detailed in his book, Anatomy of an Illness.) He credits visualization,
the love of his family and friends, and
laughter for his recovery.
Some people think laughter is a waste of time. It is a luxury, they
say, a frivolity, something to indulge in only
every so often.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Laughter is essential
to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our
aliveness. If we're not well, laughter helps us get well; if we are
well, laughter helps us stay that way.
Since Cousins' ground-breaking subjective work, scientific studies
have shown that laughter has a curative
effect on the body, the mind and the emotions.
So, if you like laughter, consider it sound medical advice
to indulge in it as often as you can. If you don't
like laughter, then take your medicine - laugh anyway.
Use whatever makes you laugh - movies, sitcoms, Monty Python, records,
books, New Yorker cartoons, jokes, friends.
Give yourself permission to laugh - long and loud and out loud - whenever
anything strikes you as funny. The
people around you may think you're strange, but sooner or later they'll
join in even if they don't know what you're
laughing about.
Some diseases may be contagious, but none is as contagious as the
cure. . . laughter.
By Peter McWilliams
from Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul
Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty
Aubery & Nancy Mitchell, R.N.
The Gossiper
A woman repeated a bit of gossip about a neighbor. Within a few days
the whole community knew the story. The
person it concerned was deeply hurt and offended. Later the woman
responsible for spreading the rumor learned that it
was completely untrue. She was very sorry and went to the wise old
sage to find out what she could do to repair the
damage.
"Go to the marketplace," he said, "and purchase a chicken, and have it
killed. Then on your way home, pluck
its feathers and drop them one by one along the road." Although surprised
by this advice, the woman did what she
was told.
The next day the wise man said, "Now go and collect all those feathers
you dropped yesterday and bring them back to
me."
The woman followed the same road, but to her dismay, the wind had blown
the feathers all away. After searching
for hours, she returned with only three in her hand. "You
see," said the old sage, "it's easy to drop them, but it's
impossible to get them back. So it is with gossip. It doesn't
take much to spread a rumor, but once you do, you
can never completely undo the wrong."
Author Unknown
Submitted by Helen Hazinski
from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul
Copyright 1997 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Kimberly Kirberger
Winning
His mother told us the story the day after.
Kenneth was in junior high school and was excited and eager about participating
in a day of Special Olympics
events. While his parents watched expectantly from the stands, he ran and
won the first race. He was proud of his
ribbon and the cheers from the crowd.
He ran in the second race. Just at the finish line, when he again would
have won, he stopped, then stepped off
the track. His parents gently questioned him. "Why did you
do that, Kenneth? If you had continued running, you would
have won another race."
Kenneth innocently replied, "But, Mom, I already have a ribbon. Billy
didn't have a ribbon yet."
By Clifford and Jerie Furness
from A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1997 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Hanoch
McCarty & Meladee McCarty
Be Yourself
President Calvin Coolidge once invited friends from his hometown
to dine at the White House. Worried about their
table manners, the guests decided to do everything that Coolidge
did. This strategy succeeded, until coffee was
served. The president poured his coffee into the saucer. The guests
did the same. Coolidge added sugar and cream. His
guests did, too. Then Coolidge bent over and put his saucer on the floor
for the cat.
By Erik Oleson
from Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Patty Hansen
