I wanted to give you some deeply meaningful philosophical gem this week but when I sat down to write all I could think of was not writing something great, but reading something great. So here’s just a couple of things about me, I guess.


I love to read and, despite the busyness of this current season of life, this week I’ve still been able to squeeze in a book on empathy written by a renowned primatologist, a story about vampires and witches, and earlier this week I even reread Winnie the Pooh.


Remember books? Books are the original hard drive technology. I love books. One of my personal commitments in life is to always be reading something. Sometimes that takes the form of an actual analog paper paged book. Sometimes it’s a digital book on my iPad. Sometimes on a long drive or when I’m working with my hands all day long—like I was this last week—I love a great audiobook. I’m not a format snob. It’s all a toolbox, so whatever works.


I love reading and I love writing, because crafting raw thoughts into language is as challenging as crafting raw materials into homes. In the end, it’s all storytelling. Reading makes me a better thinker. Thinking makes me a better writer. Writing makes me a better storyteller. Storytelling makes me a better designer and a better person, or so I’d like to believe. Building sentences is like building anything. There are fundamental rules which make them work and, once those fundamentals are mastered you can start shaping, bending, even breaking them, and that’s when the real fun begins.


Even the act of buying books is good for my soul. I love the instant gratification of downloading a book and immediately diving in on a whim, but I also love bookstores. First of all I love the smell of a bookstore. All that paper. All that ink. But I also love bookstores because unlike being guided by preference algorithms on the internet there’s room in a bookstore to be surprised by the unexpected. The older you get the more prone you are to being deceived into thinking you’ve seen it all and done it all, and I cant even begin to tell you how important it is to me to regularly be surprised. So just about every time I walk into a bookstore, even if I’m hunting down a particular title, I almost always walk out with at least one other that wasn’t part of the plan.


It’s kinda like life that way. Embracing the unexpected. Navigating what wasn’t part of the plan and letting life surprise you.


So there it is. Some thoughts on books. Honestly, I have no idea why I needed to tell you those things or what you’re supposed to do with them. Perhaps the lesson is pick up a book, it’ll do you good. Or perhaps what it means is you should rediscover some of your childlike wonder by reading Winnie the Pooh. Or maybe it’s just a reminder that, whatever you’re doing right now, don’t forget that life is so much more than that. So embrace something old, or something new, or something totally unexpected. Find another really well told story and relinquish your control to it. Let it capture you and carry you away for a while. I promise, everything will be fine while you’re gone, and you won’t be gone long.


And when you get back, who knows, perhaps you’ll be even more ready, and even better equipped, to build yourself a beautiful life.