Personal Improvement
A friend of mine named Paul received an automobile from his brother as a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it. “Is this your car, Mister?” he asked.
Paul nodded. “My brother gave it to me for Christmas.” The boy was astounded. “You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn’t cost you nothing? Boy, I wish …” He hesitated.
Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the lad said jarred Paul all the way down to his heels.
“I wish,” the boy went on, “that I could be a brother like that.”
Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively he added, “Would you like to take a ride in my automobile?”
“Oh yes, I’d love that.”
After a short ride, the boy turned and with his eyes aglow, said, “Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?”
Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again. “Will you stop where those two steps are?” the boy asked.
He ran up the steps. Then in a little while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little crippled brother. He sat him down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up against him and pointed to the car.
“There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn’t cost him a cent. And some day I’m gonna give you one just like it … then you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the Christmas windows that I’ve been trying to tell you about.”
Paul got out and lifted the lad to the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable holiday ride.
That Christmas Eve, Paul learned what Jesus meant when he said: “It is more blessed to give…”
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The Chicken Soup for the Soul books serve as companions for millions of people. Some readers learn from other people’s lessons. Others feel better about their own difficulties when they read stories of those who have gone through something similar. Chicken Soup for the Soul has received hundreds of thousands of letters from readers who tell how a Chicken Soup for the Soul book got them through a difficult time. You can be a part of this by publishing a story.
We know everything we need to know to end the needless emotional suffering that many people currently experience. High self-esteem and personal effectiveness are available to anyone willing to take the time to pursue them.
It is difficult to translate the spirit of a live presentation into the written word. Stories we tell every day have had to be rewritten five times to work as well in print as they do live. When you are reading these stories, please forget everything you ever learned in your speed-reading classes. Slow down. Listen to the words in your heart as well as in your mind. Savor each story. Let it touch you. Ask yourself, what does it awaken in me? What does it suggest for my life? What feeling or action does it call forth from my inner being? Let yourself have a personal relationship with each story.
Some stories will speak louder to you than others. Some will have deeper meaning. Some will make you cry. Some will make you laugh. Some will give you a warm feeling all over. Some may hit you right between the eyes. There is no right reaction. There is only your reaction. Let it happen and let it be.
Don’t hurry through this book. Take your time. Enjoy it. Savor it. Engage it with your whole being. It represents thousands of hours of culling the “best of the best” from our 40 years of combined experience.
One last thing: Reading a book like this is a little like sitting down to eat a meal of all desserts. It may be a little too rich. It is a meal with no vegetables, salad or bread. It is all essence with very little froth.
In our seminars and workshops we take more time to set up and discuss the implications of each story. There are more explanations and explorations of how to apply the lessons and principles to your everyday life. Don’t just read these stories. Take the time to digest them and make them your own.
If you find yourself moved to share a story with others, do it. When a story makes you think of another person, call the person it brings to mind and share it. Engage these stories and let them move you to do whatever comes up for you. They are meant to inspire and motivate you.
For a lot of these stories we went back to the original source and asked them to write it or tell it in their own words. Many of the stories will be in their voice, not ours. We have attributed every story we could to the original source. For all of those that are from fellow speakers and trainers, we have included a contributors section in the back of the book where we have listed their name, address and phone number so you can contact them yourself if you wish.
We hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as we have enjoyed writing it.
Share With Us
We would love to hear your reactions to the stories in this book. Please let us know what your favorite stories were and how they affected you.
We also invite you to send us stories you would like to see published in future editions of Chicken Soup For The Soul You can send us either stories you have written or stories written by others that you have liked.
Send submissions to:
Chicken Soup For The Soul
P.O. Box 30880 Santa Barbara, CA 93130
fax: 805-563-2945 e-mail: stories@canfieldgroup.com
You can also’ visit the Chicken Soup For The Soul site on
America Online at keyword: chickensoup.
We hope you enjoy reading this book as much as we enjoyed compiling, editing and writing it.
Personal Improvement
Get more luck in your life
Ever feel as though some people have more luck than you? Inject your life with some much needed good fortune. With the aid of positive thinking you can turn that frown upside down, start living your life to its full potential and achieve your dreams, without feeling the need to reach for that scratch card.
Look for the silver lining
It is inevitable that some people seem to get more luck than others, but should we just wait to see if luck strikes for us or take matters into our own hands? We can help ourselves a lot by looking for the silver lining in a negative situation. If you focus on the negatives you are only going to cloud your judgment on the solution, so adopt a more positive outlook on the situations in your life and you will feel better about how to handle them and begin to assume a lucky mentality. Change your thoughts and luck will follow.
Be on the lookout for new opportunities
Very rarely do opportunities for luck present themselves; when they do it’s fantastic, but the chances are this is not going to occur. Nine out of 10 times things happen because we make them happen, so why not take some calculated risks to increase your opportunities. Take smaller risks at first and if they pay off you can increase them. You should always be on the lookout for new prospects, whether it is in the workplace or in your social life. Keep your eyes and ears open as you never know what’s just around the corner and you don’t want to miss out!
Cut loose your anxieties
Individual hang ups can hold us back from doing everyday tasks in our lives. Adopt the mantra: ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ Don’t let your anxiety get the better of you; your mind is very powerful and anxiety is just a learnt behavior. Sometimes putting yourself in a stressful situation is OK and to explore new paths in life is essential. Sitting back is all well and good if you’re willing to watch the world go by, but the more open you are to new opportunities the more you’ll increase your chances of luck, so let go of that anxiety and go for it!
Trust your instincts
People who make quick decisions can be led by their intuition. Your gut instinct is more than likely correct; how many times have you been stuck in a situation where you knew things weren’t right from the off, but still carried on and things have turned sour? Listening to yourself can really help you make the right decisions. So how can you become more intuitive? Take some time for yourself, relax in the bath or go for a walk and clear your head. Spending time with yourself will help you understand your thoughts clearly; that way when the next decision has to be made you will know exactly what you think and you can manage the situation with a clear decisive answer.
Learn how to deal with bad luck
The way we deal with bad luck can be detrimental to how we view our lives. A pessimistic person can always see the bad in everything, and to dwell constantly on the bad will inevitably get you down in the dumps. Try to put a positive spin on all the bad situations you find yourself in; focusing what could have made that situation worse will give you that pick up to see you through the rough patch. It isn’t possible to always be happy and positive about everything or everyone in your life, but making a concerted effort to have a happier and brighter outlook on life will make you appreciate the luck you already had in your life that you didn’t notice.
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Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction ix
Abusive analogy
Accent
Accident
Affirming the consequent
Amphiboly
Analogical fallcy
Antiquitam, argumentum ad
Apriorism
Baculum, argumentum ad
Bifurcation
Blinding with science
The bogus dilemma
Circulus in probando
The complex question (plurium interrogationum)
Composition
Concealed quantification
Conclusion which denies premises
Contradictory premises
Crumenam, argumentum ad
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc
Damning the alternatives
VI How to Win Every Argument
Definitional retreat
Denying the antecedent
Dicto simpliciter
Division
Emotional appeals
Equivocation
Every schoolboy knows
The exception that proves the rule
Exclusive premises
The existential fallacy
Ex-post-facto statistics
Extensional pruning
False conversion
False precision
The gambler’s fallacy
The genetic fallacy
Half-concealed qualification
Hedging
Hominem (abusive), argumentum ad
Hominem (circumstantial), argumentum ad
Ignorantiam, argumentum ad
Ignorantio elenchi
Illicit process
Irrelevant humour
Lapidem, argumentum ad
Lazarum, argumentum ad
Loaded words
Misericordiam, argumentum ad
Nauseam, argumentum ad
Non-anticipation
Novitam, argumentum ad
Numeram, argumentum ad
One-sided assessment
Petitio principii
Contents vu
Poisoning the well
Populum, argumentum ad
Positive conclusion from negative premise
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Quaternio terminorum
The red herring
Refuting the example
Reification
The runaway train
Secundum quid
Shifting ground
Shifting the burden of proof
The slippery slope
Special pleading
The straw man
Temperantiam, argumentum ad
Thatcher’s blame
Trivial objections
Tu quoque
Unaccepted enthymemes
The undistributed middle
Unobtainable perfection
Verecundiam, argumentum ad
Wishful thinking
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YOUR MEMORY, MY MEMORY
The human brain has two halves, or hemispheres: the left
and the right. It is now commonly accepted and understood
that the left hemisphere governs activity in the right side of
the body and the right hemisphere governs activity in the left
side of the body. This may explain why tests show that I am
right-brain dominant: I’m a left-hander at most activities. I
write and throw with my left hand and I kick a ball with my
left foot (and I was my school soccer team’s left winger).
But exactly how do the hemispheres of the brain work and
is it as simple as all that?
