"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
-Winston Churchill
I noticed that it can be pretty hard to stay optimistic in the face of difficulty. I don't know about you, but it's like a slippery slope for me. One or two bad things happen at the beginning of my day, and that colors my perception of the rest of the events that happen for that day. On the other side of the coin, though, I only need a couple good things (or to have a good attitude about a couple bad things), and my day picks up from there.
When I was a teenager, my parents bought a copy of Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul for me from a neighborhood yard sale. Talk about a deal of a lifetime! I read the entire book cover to cover in two days, and subsequently read each story multiple times after that. Those stories didn't just help me understand how to celebrate life, but also aided me in coping with difficulties.
I have a short clip from Jack Canfield, the author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, that I'd like to share with you today. He's one of my personal heroes, so when I came across this video on Youtube, I couldn't keep it to myself. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I did!
What books have shaped you? What was it about those books that made them so impacting?