a jill story in Chapters

I was bored tonight. Bored and had a headache. The outside conditions were favourable enough so I decided I had a craving for the bookstore. I don't think I've mentioned this before on my blog, or maybe I have once before, but it is entirely important enough to mention again that I love the bookstore. I love it so much I want to marry it and have little bookstore babies.

I love the moment I walk into the bookstore and am instantly greeted by that familiar smell of billions of pages waiting to be turned. I don't often have a book in mind when I visit the bookstore, I am quite happy to just browse all of the sections at random. I say browse but really, because I am so happy to be there I quite nearly pirouette from the popular paperbacks to the bargain bin bombs of literature. I wander and I think to myself how lovely it is to be in the presence of a universe of words all assembled neatly between shiny ready-to-be cracked covers. The only other place that gets me this excited is the stationery store--so much potential in the paper and pens just dying to meet and bring to life something fabulous that pleases the inspired writer. Whether they are mine or someone else's I just love words on a page.

On this particular occasion I found something I had to take home with me right at the beginning of my journey. The book is called Change the World 9 to 5. It is a book of 100 actions to change the world at work. It is part of something called the We are What We do movement, which aims to "Inspire people to use their everyday actions to change the world". Here are three of my favourite actions so far:

Action 076
Use one of these e-mail signatures:

Sorry this is an e-mail and not a face-to-face conversation

If e-mails save time, not printing them saves trees. (I wish I could apply this wisdom at work)

Be the change you want to see in the world

Never, ever use stuff like this:
Character is forged in a crucible of adversity

Action 086
Avoid waste
"...someone has calculated that if everyone in the UK offices saved one staple a day, that would be 120 tonnes of metal saved a year" (I bet I contribute a truckload of staples to that total, I am sad to say)

Action 089
Ring the IT help desk just to see how they are. (Hello, 1-900 Tech Support?)

For anyone who enjoyed RAK week, I think you would also enjoy this book, or the other publication titled Change the World for Ten Bucks. You can also visit the website here, for more ideas of small things you can do to make a difference and to sign up for a personal action tracker to help you keep track of the small things you do that matter. I already got to add action #5 "hug someone" and #7 "install at least one energy saving light bulb".

As you can see, I left the bookstore with my craving satisfied and a new found source of inspiration. What an awesome place.