How did I get here?

I sometimes think of the things that influenced me to where I've gotten to the point where Zen feels like such a good fit. I found an old box of books from my college and a few years after college. It contained some surprising memories: Manual of Zen Buddhism by DT Suzuki, Mystics and Zen Masters by Thomas Merton, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values by Robert M Pursig. Interesting enough, in the same bin was my partner's copies of  Henry David Thoreau - Walden along with the famous essay on Civil Disobedience and Tao de Ching by Lao Tzu.