The Small Gift
 




    
     Reverend Chalfant tells of a couple who were celebrating 
 their golden wedding anniversary. The husband was asked what the 
 secret was to his successful marriage. As the elderly are wont to 
 do, the old gentleman answered with a story.
     His wife, Sarah, was the only girl he ever dated. He grew up 
 in an orphanage and worked hard for everything he had. He never 
 had time to date until Sarah swept him off his feet. Before he knew 
 it she had managed to get him to ask her to marry him.
     After they had said their vows on their wedding day, Sarah's 
 father took the new groom aside and handed him a small gift. He said, 
 "Within this gift is all you really need to know to have a happy 
 marriage." The nervous young man fumbled with the paper and ribbon 
 until he got the package unwrapped.
     Within the box lay a large gold watch. With great care he picked 
 it up. Upon close examination he saw etched across the face of the 
 watch a prudent reminder he would see whenever he checked the time of 
 day . . . words that, if heeded, held the secret to a successful 
 marriage. They were, "Say something nice to Sarah."
    
                    By Morris Chalfant
                 Retold by Marilyn K. McAuley 
         from A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul  
          Copyright 1997 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor 
            Hansen, Hanoch McCarty & Meladee McCarty  

					

 			Living Example



     
      Reporters and city officials gathered at a Chicago railroad 
 station one afternoon in 1953. The person they were meeting was the 
 1952 Nobel Peace Prize winner. A few minutes after the train came 
 to a stop, a giant of a man - six feet four inches - with bushy 
 hair and a large mustache stepped from the train. Cameras flashed. 
 City officials approached him with hands outstretched. Various 
 people began telling him how honored they were to meet him.
      The man politely thanked them and then, looking over their 
 heads, asked if he could be excused for a moment. He quickly walked 
 through the crowd until he reached the side of an elderly black 
 woman who was struggling with two large suitcases. He picked up the 
 bags and with a smile, escorted the woman to a bus. After helping her 
 aboard, he wished her a safe journey. As he returned to the 
 greeting party he apologized, "Sorry to have kept you waiting."
      The man was Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the famous missionary doctor 
 who had spent his life helping the poor in Africa. In response to 
 Schweitzer's action, one member of the reception committee said 
 with great admiration to the reporter standing next to him, "That's 
 the first time I ever saw a sermon walking."
    
                 By From God's Little Devotional Book 
                from A Cup of Chicken Soup for the Soul  
                 Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark 
                    Victor Hansen & Barry Spilchuk  
    
   
  
   


 		      Are You Strong Enough
                  	to Handle Critics?
   



        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 his 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.
   
                  By Theodore Roosevelt
                  from Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul 
                  Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor 
                  Hansen & Patty Hansen 
   


The Question



     
     Isn't it amazing how few of us ask ourselves the important 
 question?
     Several years ago I was invited to hear an important speaker 
 address the student body of a small college in South Carolina. The 
 auditorium was filled with students excited about the opportunity 
 to hear a person of her stature speak. After the governor gave the 
 introduction, the speaker moved to the microphone, looked at the 
 audience from left to right, and began:
     "I was born to a mother who was deaf and could not speak. I 
 do not know who my father is or was. The first job I ever had was 
 in a cotton field."
     The audience was spellbound. "Nothing has to remain the way it 
 is if that's not the way a person wants it to be," she continued. 
 "It isn't luck, and it isn't circumstances, and it isn't being born 
 a certain way that causes a person's future to become what it 
 becomes." And she softly repeated, "Nothing has to remain the way 
 it is if that's not the way a person wants it to be.
     "All a person has to do," she added in a firm voice, "to change 
 a situation that brings unhappiness or dissatisfaction is answer the 
 question: "How do I want this situation to become?" Then the person 
 must commit totally to personal actions that carry them there."
     Then a beautiful smile shone forth as she said, "My name is Azie 
 Taylor Morton. I stand before you today as treasurer of the United 
 States of America."
    
                 By Bob Moore
                 from Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work 
                 Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor 
                 Hansen, Maida Rogerson, Martin Rutte & Tim Clauss 
    
   
   


The Shadowland of Dreams
 


       
      Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I  
 always encourage such people, but I also explain that there’s a  
 big difference between “being a writer” and writing. In most  
 cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame, not the  
 long hours alone at the typewriter. “You’ve got to want to  
 write,” I say to them, “not want to be a writer.” 
      The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor- 
 paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune, there are  
 thousands more whose longing is never requited. Even those who  
 succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty. I did. 
      When I left a 20-year career in the Coast Guard to become a  
 freelance writer, I had no prospects at all. What I did have was  
 a friend with whom I’d grown up in Henning, Tennessee. George  
 found me my home - a cleaned-out storage room in the Greenwich  
 Village apartment building where he worked as superintendent. It  
 didn’t even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom.  
 Immediately I bought a used manual typewriter and felt like a  
 genuine writer. 
      After a year or so, however, I still hadn’t received a break  
 and began to doubt myself. It was so hard to sell a story that I  
 barely made enough to eat. But I knew I wanted to write. I had  
 dreamed about it for years. I wasn’t going to be one of those  
 people who die wondering, “What if?” I would keep putting my  
 dream to the test - even though it meant living with uncertainty  
 and fear of failure. This is the Shadowland of hope, and anyone  
 with a dream must learn to live there. 
      Then one day I got a call that changed my life. It wasn’t an  
 agent or editor offering a big contract. It was the opposite - a  
 kind of siren call tempting me to give up my dream. On the phone  
 was an old acquaintance from the Coast Guard, now stationed in  
 San Francisco. He had once lent me a few bucks and liked to egg  
 me about it. “When am I going to get the $15, Alex?” he teased. 
      “Next time I make a sale.” 
      “I have a better idea,” he said. “We need a new public- 
 information assistant our here, and we’re paying $6,000 a year.  
 If you want it, you can have it.” 
      Six thousand a year! That was real money in 1960. I could  
 get a nice apartment, a used car, pay off debts and maybe save a  
 little something. What’s more, I could write on the side. 
      As the dollars were dancing in my head, something cleared my  
 senses. From deep inside a bull-headed resolution welled up. I  
 had dreamed of being a writer - full time. And that’s what I was  
 going to be. “Thanks, but no,” I heard myself saying. “I’m going  
 to stick it out and write.” 
      Afterward, as I paced around my little room, I started to  
 feel like a fool. Reaching into my cupboard - an orange crate  
 nailed to the wall - I pulled out all that was there: two cans of  
 sardines. Plunging my hands in my pockets, I came up with 18  
 cents. I took the cans and coins and jammed them into a crumpled  
 paper bag. There Alex, I said to myself. There’s everything  
 you’ve made of yourself so far. I’m not sure I ever felt so low. 
      I wish I could say things started getting better right away.  
 But they didn’t. Thank goodness I had George to help me over the  
 rough spots. 
      Through him I met other struggling artists, like Joe  
 Delaney, a veteran painter from Knoxville, Tennessee. Often Joe  
 lacked food money, so he’d visit a neighborhood butcher who would  
 give him big bones with morsels of meat, and a grocer who would  
 hand him some wilted vegetables. That’s all Joe needed to make  
 down-home soup. 
      Another Village neighbor was a handsome young singer who ran  
 a struggling restaurant. Rumor had it that if a customer ordered  
 steak, the singer would dash to a supermarket across the street  
 to buy one. His name was Harry Belafonte. 
      People like Delaney and Belafonte became role models for me.  
 I learned that you had to make sacrifices and live creatively to  
 keep working at your dreams. That’s what living in the Shadowland  
 is all about. 
      As I absorbed the lesson, I gradually began to sell my  
 articles. I was writing about what many people were talking about  
 then: civil rights, black Americans and Africa. Soon, like birds  
 flying south, my thoughts were drawn back to my childhood. In the  
 silence of my room, I heard the voices of Grandma, Cousin  
 Georgia, Aunt Plus, Aunt Liz and Aunt Till as they told stories  
 about our family and slavery. 
      These were stories that black Americans had tended to avoid  
 before, and so I mostly kept them to myself. But one day at lunch  
 with editors of Reader’s Digest, I told these stories of my  
 grandmother and aunts and cousins. I said that I had a dream to  
 trace my family’s history to the first African brought to these  
 shores in chains. I left that lunch with a contract that would  
 help support my research and writing for nine years. 
      It was a long, slow climb out of the shadows. Yet in 1970,  
 17 years after I left the Coast Guard, Roots was published.  
 Instantly I had the kind of fame and success that few writers  
 ever experience. The shadows had turned into dazzling limelight. 
      For the first time I had money and open doors everywhere.  
 The phone rang all the time with new friends and new deals. I  
 packed up and moved to Los Angeles, where I could help in the  
 making of the Roots TV mini-series. It was a confusing,  
 exhilarating time, and in a sense, I was blinded by the light of  
 my success. 
      Then one day, while unpacking, I came across a box filled  
 with things I had owned years before in the Village. Inside was a  
 brown paper bag. 
      I opened it, and there were two corroded sardine cans, a  
 nickel, a dime and three pennies. Suddenly the past came flooding  
 in like a riptide. I could picture myself once again huddled over  
 the typewriter in that cold, bleak, one-room apartment. And I  
 said to myself, The things in this bag are part of my roots, too.  
 I can’t ever forget that. 
      I sent them out to be framed in Lucite. I keep that clear  
 plastic case where I can see it every day. I can see it now above  
 my office desk in Knoxville, along with the Pulitzer Prize, a  
 portrait of nine Emmys awarded to the TV production of Roots, and  
 the Spingarn medal - the NAACP’s highest honor. I’d be hard  
 pressed to say which means the most to me. But only one reminds  
 me of the courage and persistence it takes to stay the course in  
 the Shadowland. 
      It’s a lesson anyone with a dream should learn. 
       
                         By Alex Haley  
                 from Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work  
     Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Maida  
      	          Rogerson, Martin Rutte & Tim Clauss  




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