I love books. I adore cracking open a tome and losing myself between its pages. I love words–and even better, a well-told story.

I own so many books, that I have them stacked up, spilling over, and damn-near positioned on every table, bookshelf, floor, and nightstand. A mess, for sure, but my standom of words is quite apparent.

Although I love books, most of my collection consists of fiction. James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Colin Channer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernesto Quinonez, Junot Diaz, Tayari Jones–I could literally go on for days. But lately, I’ve been looking to add a little self-help/spiritually-focused material to my stash.

As many of you know I’ve been a SERIOUS fan of Oprah’s Lifeclass. And as a decidedly non-new-agey type, the weekly discussions on Lifeclass have been extremely helpful and eye-opening for me. Surprisingly, Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra have been two of my favorites thus far because they’ve been focusing on changing your “story”–or your thoughts, and creating the life that you want.

Much of what I do here centers on living your most awesome life. Traveling, doing what you love, helping others, and not being bogged down by the burdens of your past is what I’m most interested in these days.

Call it maturing or call it not being interested in negativity anymore, whatever the case may be, I’ve realized that life is too short, too precious, and too full of potentially dope experiences to constantly look back regretting what you could have done.

On the strength of yesterday’s Lifeclass I went out and bought Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. From the opening pages, it had me, and I’m hoping this will be yet another resource that will continue to guide me in the right direction.

I’ll leave you with this:

You are what your deep, driving desire is.

As your desire is, so is your will.

As your will is, so is your deed.

As your deed is, so is your destiny.

–Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV. 4.5

What’s on your bookshelf these days?