Chicken Soup For The What?

Chicken Soup for the What?

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9, NIV

Ever heard of Chicken Soup for the Soul, the book series composed of inspirational, motivational, and uplifting stories? If you haven’t, you’re one of the very few. According to Harris Polls, 89 percent of the public not only recognizes the Chicken Soup brand but also knows what it is. With more than 112 million books sold to date, almost two hundred titles in print, and translations into more than forty languages, “Chicken Soup for the Soul” is one of the world’s best-known phrases.

But long before the mega-success of that series, there was George Matthew Adams. You may not have heard of him, but if you were reading newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s, you would have surely seen his name. He wrote short essays of inspirational stories and was syndicated in about one hundred newspapers.

If there was a common theme in George’s column, it would have to be encouragement and affirmation. “There are high spots in all of our lives,” wrote George Matthew Adams, “and most of them have come about through encouragement from someone else. I don’t care how great, how famous or successful a man or woman may be, each hungers for applause. Encouragement is oxygen to the soul. Good work can never be expected from a worker without encouragement. No one can ever have lived without it.”^a

It’s so true. That’s why we ask if the two of you are giving and receiving your daily required dose of encouragement and affirmation. To affirm, by the way, is to make firm. An affirmation is a statement of truth you make firm by repetition. It’s what cultivates conviction. When you compliment your spouse’s attitude, for example, you make that attitude more stable. More reliable. Because you noticed it, your partner’s attitude is solidified and reinforced. He or she is more likely to demonstrate the same attitude again.

Like the repetition of a weight-lifting regimen, routine compliments build up a person’s character qualities and strengthen his or her personality. So we ask you again: are you feeding each other a bit of chicken soup for the soul?

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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