Readers Digest - Readers Digest Timeless Favorites

The Best of Readers Digest Timeless Favorites

Stories That Inspire, Amuse, and Entertain

A READERS DIGEST BOOK

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ISBN 978-1-62145-589-9 (hardcover)

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Whether the theme is Disney princesses, auctions, or college football, nothing is more American than the subjects and characters whose stories are told in Readers Digest. For the past 100 years, weve been capturing in vivid detail the grand tapestry of life in the United States, from historic moments to childhood memories, life-altering events to simple pleasures.

In this volume, weve gathered some of our favorite narratives from the past century, full of chance encounters with celebrities, miraculous escapes from death, and hilarious accounts of all the little absurdities of life. Youll be fascinated by the behind-the-scenes report of how Ronald Reagans famous exhortation to Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall was nearly cut from his speech; youll be rooting for the blind duck that was a victim of an oil spill; and youll laugh out loud at Americas ten funniest jokes and the comics who chose them.

With stories about soldiers, criminals, and everyday heroes, The Best of Readers Digest: Timeless Favorites has something for everyone, from humor to drama to heartwarming taleseach as funny, thrilling, and moving as when it was first printed in the pages of the magazine.

Happy reading!

The Editors of Readers Digest

It is in the minds eyeand the image of it, firmly held, can often help you to live up to your own best moments.

BY ARTHUR GORDON

Originally published in June 1960

O ne of my most vivid and valuable memories goes back to a mild December afternoon in the Georgia low country. Vivid because I remember it so clearly. Valuable because, without fully understanding it, I was handed a remarkable bit of wisdom.

A single-barreled, 20-gauge shotgun, given to me for Christmas, had made me the proudest 13-year-old in Georgia. On my first hunt, moreover, by a lucky freak I had managed to hit the only bird I got a shot at. My heart almost burst with excitement and pride.

The second hunt was a different story. My companion was an elderly judge, a friend of my fathers. He looked rather like a bloodhound, with a seamed brown face and hooded eyes and the easy tolerance that comes from knowing the worst about the human race but liking people just the same. I had some misgivings about hunting with the Judge because I stood in awe of him, and wanted mightily to please him. And I walked straight into humiliation.

We found plenty of birds, and the Judge knocked down one or two on every covey rise. I, on the other hand, didnt touch a feather. I tried everything: shooting over, under, soon, late. Nothing made any difference. And the more I missed, the tenser I got.

Then old Doc, the pointer, spotted a quail in a clump of palmetto. He froze, his long tail rigid. Something in me froze, too, because I knew I was facing one more disgrace.

This time, however, instead of motioning me forward, the Judge placed his gun carefully on the ground. Lets set a minute, he suggested companionably. Whereupon he took out a pipe and loaded it with blunt fingers. Then, slowly, he said, Your dad was telling me you hit the first quail you shot at the other day. That right?

Yes, sir, I said miserably. Just luck, I guess.

Maybe, said the Judge. But that doesnt matter. Do you remember exactly how it happened? Can you close your eyes and see it all in your mind?

I nodded, because it was true. I could summon up every detail: the bird exploding from under my feet, the gun seeming to point itself, the surge of elation, the warmth of the praise.

Well, now, the Judge said easily, you just sit here and relive that shot a couple of times. Then go over there and kick up that bird. Dont think about me or the dog or anything else. Just think about that one good shot you made the other dayand sort of keep out of your own way.

Youve been focusing on failure. I want to leave you looking at the image of success, he said.

When I did what he said, it was as if a new set of reflexes had come into play. Out flashed the quail. Up went the gun, smoothly and surely, as if it had life and purpose of its own. Seconds later, Doc was at my knee, offering the bird.

I was all for pressing on, but the Judge unloaded his gun. Thats all for today, son, he said. Youve been focusing on failure all afternoon. I want to leave you looking at the image of success.

There, complete in two sentences, was the best advice Id ever had, or ever would have. Did I recognize it, seize upon it eagerly, act upon it fully? Of course not. I was just a child, delighted with a remarkable trick that somehow worked. I had no inkling of the tremendous psychological dynamics involved.

For a long time, with a childs faith in magic, I used the Judges advice as a kind of hunting good luck charm. Later I found that the charm worked in other sports, too. In tennis, say, if at some crucial point you needed a service ace, it was uncanny how often your racket would deliver if you made yourself recall, vividly and distinctly, a previous ace that you had hammered past an opponent.

I know now why this is so. The human organism is a superb machine, engineered to solve fantastic problems. It is perfectly capable of blasting a tennis ball 70 feet onto an area the size of a handkerchief, or putting an ounce of shot traveling more than 100 feet per second exactly where it will intersect the path of a target moving 50 miles per hour. It can do far more difficult things than thesebut only if it is not interfered with, if tension does not creep in to stiffen the muscles, dull the reflexes, and fog the marvelous computers in the brain.

And tension, which nine times out of ten is based on the memory of past failures, can be reduced or even eliminated by the memory of past success.

At first I applied this image-of-success technique only to athletics. Later I began to see that a similar principle operated for many of the successful career people whom I met through my work. These individuals varied enormously in background, in field of endeavoreven in brains. The one thing they all had in common was confidence.