The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono is one of my favourite books. It’s short and simple and yet full of gentle but powerful encouragement to everyone to be themselves and realise what they can achieve in life. Slowly and steadily one man planting a hundred acorns a day of which only 10% survive but this is still over 3500 trees a year. That’s a fairly substantial wood and in a few years it’s an entire forest. It’s a beautiful story of one man’s contribution to the world.
We all have 100 hours each week to spend and if we use 10 of them being inspiring or doing something that makes a positive difference it will have an impact. As a result of reading this book I now try and make at least 10 of my 100 hours each week count. There is a PDF here. I have a nice illustrated copy of the book which I love to have close by.
http://www.nrri.umn.edu/boulder/education/K12/
People%20and%20forests/The%20Man%20Who%20Planted%20Trees.pdf
The book was also made into a lovely short film which is equally accessible.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v_7yEPNUXsU
The unusual thing about this story is that many people including myself thought it was true. But in fact someone made it up, this life, created it from their own imagination and we can all do that, if we want to….
