Picture courtesy of adamr at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Years ago I worked in a rare and secondhand bookstore in my home town of Cambridge, England.  The store was on a very narrow street in the heart of the city and the buildings around were either mediaeval stone college entrances, or Victorian store fronts.  The road was so narrow that we could almost reach out of the doorway and shake hands with our neighbour across the street, also a secondhand bookstore, and when a bus or truck came down the road pedestrians would have to stand as close to the buildings as possible to avoid being hit by the wing mirrors.

The shelves in the rooms on the second floor of the store were stocked with many fine examples of beautifully bound books some rare, some not, on subjects such as maps, tales of adventure, art, classic children’s stories, etc, you name the subject we could find it.  People from all around the world were on our catalogue’s mailing list.

One day we took delivery of some rare books from a private press, and when I unwrapped the parcel I admired the hardcover printing and binding, but as I opened the first copy I realised that this book was only about 20 pages, each page had been printed with the same colour marbeling and same design, no words, no explanation and the press was asking us to sell each volume for over a £100.  Horrified at the price I couldn’t believe it, so I asked my manager if this was right.  He explained that every last little part of each book had been put together by hand, each page had been printed on hand made paper and that it took a high skill to get the designs to be this accurate every time.  Once I understood the procedure, time and effort it took to put together one volume I saw the book with a different eye.

“Great story but how does this apply to me?” I hear you say to the inanimate object you’re reading this on.

Answer:  I learned my lesson that day at 20 years old not to “judge a book by its cover” literally, but I’ve seen this old saying, that my mother and father quoted at me again and again growing up, apply over and over to people over the years.

You, me and everyone around us consist of more than what appears to the outside world.  You have hobbies, interests and thoughts about which your co-workers, boss or friends have no idea. There are many pages within our outer covers, there are many background stories that got us to this point and each and everyone one of them affects what we do, how we do it, what we say, how we say it, how we behave towards others, how and what we do with our lives on a daily basis.

Acknowledging that there is more to each person than that outer cover makes us appreciate the people around us more, just like me with the book (though I still reserve the right to think it was overpriced!).

However, if we choose to, we can change how we present ourselves to the outside world; we can change the outer cover (change our hairstyle, colour our hair, change our dress style), we can begin to let people see the things that are important to us in our lives, allowing us to see how important they are to us.  Don’t be afraid to let people see that “the book is more than just the sum of its pages”.

Be proud of your pages. Everyone has a back story, what’s yours?

TTFN

Amanda