My wife and I read every night with our daughters. When they were infants, we did all the reading. Now, the girls do most of it. Our daughters are among the best readers in their respective grades, but it’s about much more than that. The books they read take them to faraway places filled with limitless adventure, to dinner tables with families from different cultures, and to times past in America…pre-iPhone, pre-television, and pre-automobile. In other words, reading gives our girls perspective.
Books also provide our daughters with ideas, answers, and inspiration. And guess what? Sometimes when we read together, I find that I am learning as much as they are.
This post is inspired by a powerful children’s book by Barbara Cooney, originally published in 1985, entitled Miss Rumphius. I was tired last night and wanted to go to bed. My eldest daughter, Zoe, and I had already read two stories. I kissed her goodnight and she said, “Daddy…one more thing before you go…”
“What’s that?” I said.
“We have to read one more story.”
“OK,” I said, “but pick a short one.”
Man, am I happy I stayed.
Miss Rumphius took less than ten minutes to read cover to cover, but it will stay with me forever. Here’s the summary:
Miss Rumphius is the story of Alice Rumphius and her desire to do three things: live by the sea, go to faraway places, and make the world a more beautiful place. This third desire is instilled in young Alice by her wise old grandfather, and is mostly what this special story is about. After Alice listens to her grandfather’s stories of faraway places, Alice tells him that she, too, will go to faraway places and she will eventually settle by the sea. Alice’s grandfather intones, that is all well and good, but you must also do a third thing:”You must do something to make the world more beautiful.”
After an account of Alice’s travel, very appealingly illustrated, the story moves on to depict the charming seaside town Alice eventually settles in. Here, Alice will do her grandfather proud and start making the world more beautiful.  After a hard winter, Alice realizes that her lupines (a gorgeous flower of purple, blue and rose) have not only survived but expanded, with a little help from the wind and the birds. Alice has her “aha” moment. She orders large quantities of the very best lupine seeds from the very best seed house. When the seeds arrive, Alice fills her pockets daily and scatters the seeds wherever she goes. Lupines flourish and prosper throughout the whole town, thus making her corner of the world a more beautiful place.
 At the end of this story, you realize the narrator is actually Alice’s great niece, Alice. Great Aunt Alice urges her great niece to also find her own way to make the world a more beautiful place.
In Miss Rumphius, beauty is portrayed as physical beauty – flowers, actually. It’s often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps, though, that it is also in the eye of the giver. Knowing that what you are doing in the present will leave a lasting impact on those who come after you is gratifying. And that in itself is a beautiful thing.
Beauty doesn’t have to be something that can be seen. Here are a few ways you might make the world a more beautiful place (starting right in your shop today):

• By being friendly to everyone you interact with.
• By creating jobs at your shop so that your employees have the means to raise their families.
• By treating your employees like family and helping them to accomplish their goals.
• By painting an old building or cleaning up the sidewalk.
• By planting flowers or trees.
• By serving your customers with passion, compassion, and a smile.
• By creating an environment in which your employees and your customers enjoy themselves.
• By being fair and honest, even when the opportunity to sell a major job presents itself and you would never get caught…but you know that you could fix the car for a few hundred bucks.
• By creating a library of books for your customers (and their children) to read in your lobby.

Charlie “Tremendous” Jones was fond of saying, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” I know you meet a lot of people in the automotive service business. What I don’t know is how many books you read. Let me take a guess: not enough.
Everything you are looking for in your life is in a book. Oh, the answer itself may not be there, but the way to find the answer will be. You will learn from the biographies of great men and women who came before us. You will learn from the thinking of great philosophers, leaders, and doers. The more books you read, the more you learn. The more books you read, the more you think. The more books you read, the more you will do. The trick is finding the right book at the right time. And, sometimes, the book you are looking for may be in your kid’s room.
Last night when we finished reading Miss Rumphius, I spent an hour evaluating my life. I thought about the things that I’ve done to help others and to leave a little mark on the world. I wondered, though, had I done anything to make the world more beautiful?
Not so much.
The good news is that I have a few years left (like 50 if I’m lucky), and I plan to get started creating and adding beauty right away.
When it’s your time to go, will you be able to say that you did something to make the world more beautiful?