Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II (41 page)

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Authors: Jack Canfield,Mark Victor Hansen,Kimberly Kirberger

BOOK: Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II
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Page 225
women's shelter. "You have to fight to live," I'd tell them, "whether it's against disease or circumstance."
But my heart broke for the children, living in a strange place. It's hard feeling like you don't fit in. That's why I'm studying child psychology now. And that's why even though Loren has offered to carry a child for me when the time comes, I think I'll adopt, because I know what it's like for a child to feel unwanted.
Those dark days are behind me. I've made new friends in college. And although I've been in remission for just two years, I know I've been cured . . .  of a lot of things.
Peg Verone
Excerpted from
Woman's World Magazine

 

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A Lesson for Life
The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core strength within you that survives all hurt.
Max Lerner
"Look at fatso!"
Freshmen in high school can be cruel and we certainly were to a young man named Matt who was in my class. We mimicked him, teased him and taunted him about his size. He was at least fifty pounds overweight. He felt the pain of being the last one picked to play basketball, baseball or football. Matt will always remember the endless pranks that were played on himtrashing his hall locker, piling library books on his desk at lunchtime and spraying him with icy streams of water in the shower after gym class.
One day he sat near me in gym class. Someone pushed him and he fell on me and banged my foot quite badly. The kid who pushed him said Matt did it. With the whole class watching, I was put on the spot to either shrug it off or pick a fight with Matt. I chose to fight in order to keep my image intact.

 

Page 227
I shouted, "C'mon, Matt, let's fight!" He said he didn't want to. But peer pressure forced him into the conflict whether he liked it or not. He came toward me with his fists in the air. He was no George Foreman. With one punch I bloodied his nose and the class went wild. Just then the gym teacher walked into the room. He saw that we were fighting and he sent us out to the oval running track.
He followed us with a smile on his face and said, "I want you two guys to go out there and run that mile holding each other's hands." The room erupted into a roar of laughter. The two of us were embarrassed beyond belief, but Matt and I went out to the track and ran our milehand-in-hand.
At some point during the course of our run, I remember looking over at him, with blood still trickling from his nose and his weight slowing him down. It struck me that here was a person, not all that different from myself. We both looked at each other and began to laugh. In time we became good friends.
Going around that track, hand-in-hand, I no longer saw Matt as fat or dumb. He was a human being who had intrinsic value and worth far beyond any externals. It was amazing what I learned when I was forced to go hand-in-hand with someone for only one mile.
For the rest of my life I have never so much as raised a hand against another person.
Medard Laz

 

Page 228
Remember Me?
My name is Gossip.
I have no respect for justice.
I maim without killing. I break hearts and ruin lives.
I am cunning, malicious and gather strength with age.
The more I am quoted, the more I am believed.
I flourish at every level of society.
My victims are helpless. They cannot protect themselves against me because I have no name and no face.
To track me down is impossible. The harder you try, the more elusive I become.
I am nobody's friend.
Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same.
I topple governments and wreck marriages. I ruin careers and cause sleepless nights, heartaches and indigestion. I spawn suspicion and generate grief. I make innocent people cry in their pillows. Even my name hisses.
I am called GOSSIP. Office gossipShop gossipParty gossipTelephone gossip. I make headlines and headaches. REMEMBER, before you repeat a story, ask yourself: is it true? Is it fair? Is it necessary?? If not, do not repeat it. KEEP QUIET.

 

Page 229
GREAT minds discuss ideas. . . . Average minds discuss events. . . . Shallow minds discuss people. . . . Which are you?
Ann Landers
Submitted by Amanda Kurlan

 

Page 230
A Wider Classroom
Our white van meandered its way through the broken West Virginia landscape and pulled up alongside Jim's avocado-colored house. As the doors opened, we poured out with hammers in hand. We were eight teenagers on a week-long service project to repair the homes of the less fortunate residing in the Appalachian mountains. The area seemed to contradict itself, for it held so much beauty yet housed so much poverty. Maybe we hailed ourselves as being able to serve those people in need; I do not think we ever imagined that what they could give us would perhaps be more valuable then any services we could render.
We rotated jobs as we basked in the southern sun; some of us scraped and painted windows, while others stained the deck or worked on the roof. All the while Jim sat in a lawn chair observing us: the kindest of old men, only too sorry that he could not labor alongside us on the ladders. We passed the time with inside jokes and songs, truly enjoying ourselves regardless of the tedium of treating window after window as Jim just silently observed.
As the clock neared noon, we took our lunch break

 

Page 231
in the shade of a small tree in Jim's front yard. Sam, our moderator, planted Jim's chair beside us and announced that since he was eager to help in any way possible, Jim would lead us in a before-meal prayer. He kept it succinct and we all began to eat.
"Let me tell you a story. . . ." he then began. And from the pit of his humble heart he began to unravel his eighty-some-odd years for us. He was a school teacher and a baseball coach who had a loyal dog named Pretty-Face. He told of old hunting expeditions in the mountains where his life was almost lost to a bear, and he talked of conquering a rattlesnake, even showing us the rattles.
Then his cavernous eyes just wandered off as if he was no longer talking solely for our benefit, but more for his own. He described that day his dog died, as fat tears rolled down his weathered cheeks and he gripped the end of his cane. He recalled her loyalty to the end as with one last thump of the tail, looking up at him, Pretty-Face passed on. He remembered his wife gazing up at him much the same way seconds before her death.
He always affectionately called his wife "Mama," and he told of how she'd always stayed up until the small hours of the morning to bake the bread for the next day, while he, often tired from a long day of teaching or hunting, would retire to bed.
"Why didn't I just stay up with her?" he said in a distant voice as his eyes gazed beyond us. "Why couldn't I have just taken that extra time? Why?"
I remember how profoundly those words rang inside of me. Here was a man brimming with wisdom and reflections on his life, telling me to make the most of mine, to take that extra time with those I love. I was inspired; I was mesmerized by this extraordinary old man that I had thought I was helping. Jim's house was not a job at all, it was a classroom.
Kate McMahon
Submitted by Olive O'Sullivan

 

Page 232
The Bat
The best part about running, for me, is the finish. The moment when, flushed and out of breath, I reach my destination: my backyard. Ironically, I have run full circle, ending up where I began. Yet, I have also taken a positive step forward in my life, determined and acted out by no one other than myself. My decision, my action.
As I sit and wait for my breathing to slow and the rush to subside, I wish upon a star. "Star light, star bright . . . " A bat flits across my path of vision and my eyes follow it. Without any warning, the bat suddenly swerves and changes direction. It has changed its path forever.
And now, having been interrupted, my wish seems futile and absurd. I am filled with a rushing understanding of the part I play in my own life.
I am not just a bystander. My life is not to be controlled by the stars, but by me, and me alone. Like the bat, I am free to choose my own path, however haphazard and illogical it might appear to be.
Bryony Blackwood

 

Page 233
The Player
It was his attitude that got me. That self-assured smile and those cocky mannerisms gave me the irresistible urge to challenge such conceit. I had never met a person so sure of himself. He assumed that when you first met him, you had no choice but to like him. It made me want to prove him wrong. I would show him that I could not only resist his charms, but that I could beat him at his own game.
So our relationship began as a battle, each trying to gain a foothold, trying to pull ahead of the other and prove our dominance. We waged an unrelenting war of mind games, insults and tests.
But somewhere in the middle of our warfare, the teasing became playful and we became friends. We found in each other not just a challenge, but someone to turn to when we didn't feel like fighting anymore. Josh loved to "communicate." He often talked for hours as I listened, covering every topic that affected him and his life. I soon realized that he was more concerned about himself than anything else. But because I didn't always have a lot to say, it didn't seem that it would be a conflict in our relationship.
It was several months after our friendship started that

 

Page 234
Josh began a discussion about love. ''It takes a lot for me to love someone," he told me, in a tone more serious than I had ever heard from him. "What I need is trust. I could never fall in love with someone who I didn't feel I could tell everything to. Like you. You're my favorite person in the entire world. I could tell you anything," he said, looking straight at me.
I blushed, unsure of what response I should give in return, afraid that whatever I said would betray the new emotions I had begun to feel for Josh over the past few weeks. The look in my eyes must have given me away, because from that moment on, it seemed that he began to do everything in his power to make me fall deeper and deeper into the way I felt about him. Was it love? He seemed to glow in the attention that I paid him. And I enjoyed adoring him. Yet it didn't take me very long to figure out that Josh had no intention of returning my devotion.
When we were alone, he would kiss me and hold me and tell me how special our relationship was to him, and that he didn't know anyone else who made him so happy. But a few weeks into our relationship, I found out that he was involved with another girl and had been for some time. The pain I felt at his betrayal was overwhelming, but I found I couldn't be angry with him. I felt sure inside that he really did care, and that it was his friendship that was important to me.
At school one day, I saw him standing with a group of girls, and by the flirtatious smile on his face, I could tell he had again been working his magic. "Josh!" I yelled down the hallway to him. He looked up at me, then back at the girls, and with a groupie under each arm, he turned and made his way in the opposite direction. I stood completely deflated, not wanting to acknowledge what had just happened. But I couldn't avoid the truth any longer. My "best friend" had ignored me so I wouldn't hurt the

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