Do you want something now, or do you want it for life?

The hyper-marketing of instant gratification sells the instant results, the overnight makeovers and the 30 day programs. Even the YouTube community propagates the effectiveness of a program based on the short term (30 day challenges being the most common).

Companies are the worst offenders as they’re notorious for only thinking of the next quarter.

While there is something to be said about the sprint and the short term gains (they can act as a great motivator), dealing with the long term benefits is a barren wasteland.

Why?

It’s boring. It’s slow. It requires a ton of discipline.

And the biggest one: it’s difficult to see progress happening because of the tiny, incremental gains. You only really see progress when you look at your beginning in hindsight.

However, being on the long-term path allows you to reap the benefits continuously as you’ve committed to it for however long it takes.

The short-term can work, but it’s not sustainable.

The unfortunate part is humans are horrendous for thinking long-term until we feel it’s too late.

That’s why it’s best to start now. Don’t over think or over plan, but adjust as you go. Make a few springs along the way, then get back to the regular program.

It’s not glamorous and it goes unnoticed, but something strange happens—you become the “exception” because of what you did.

Too often we set our expectation to be on point with everyone else, or be slightly above the average.

What we’re really doing is aiming for mediocrity and there’s a few problems with it.

First, our expectation for what the average is happens on a sliding scale. Depending on the strength of the group we are in will determine how far you actually go. I’m a firm believer that you are the result of the five people you hang around with most.

Second, people will rise to your level of expectation. If someone is working way below where they need to be and you set the expectation to the midpoint, you’ve set a glass ceiling for them.

It’s always best to set high expectations. Ridiculously high.

But… and this is important… celebrate every step along the way to getting there.

We tend to approach life from the perspective of a lack.

What are we lacking?
What do we need?
What is missing?

This was useful biological programming when food resources were scarce and predators threatened us in every bush. But then we went ahead and made an entire hierarchy of needs based off that mentality.

The mentality of lacking quickly spirals into an obsession with always wanting more. Marketing preys on this idea and has successfully drilled the message into us that happiness is just one more purchase away.

At some point, however, we need to stop and look at our own lives and ask, where is my abundance?

What do I have in abundance that I couldn’t possibly need any more of and yet, don’t even recognize?

Is it compiling a grocery list with the question of, “What do we need/want?” instead of, “What can we afford?”

Is it trying to schedule visits with family and friends because the calendar is full with people you are visiting and that are visiting you?

Is it looking at your home and planning renovations, rather than looking at your bills and hoping you can stay another month?

If we just ask a few questions every morning of where our abundance is, we may come to realize how little we’re actually lacking.

I have yet to meet a single person who complained enough to change the weather.

I have met many people who complain all the time about it…

“It’s too hot,”
“It’s freezing,”
“Stupid rain,”

Or any other multitude number of observations they turn into gripes. But, I have yet to see the weather change because of said griping.

(Fascinating side note: An academic once suggested to me the reason Canadians seem so united on issues or willing to show compassion to another person is because we all united under a common enemy: the weather. Not sure if they’re right, but it is interesting to think about.)

What does a topic as inconsequential as the weather have to do with anything?

Because there’s just so much in life you have no control over, has little to no impact on you personally, and yet, we attempt to reason, yell, plead or work ourselves up over it.

We let it get to us, delve into our minds and literally let it ruin our days…weeks… sometimes years.

This isn’t to say we shouldn’t fight for change. It means we need to stop worrying about trivial details that we can’t change. Celebrity gossip, for instance, is thrown in our face as if it affects the fabric of the universe.

People yelling at each other on social media?
As long as social media exists, that’s never going away.

Your workplace instituted a new policy based on some fad?
It’ll run its course and be replaced by something else soon enough.

At the end of the day, there are people who complain about bullshit and try to fight it… and there are people who work through it and find another way.

Since you can’t fight it, find another way.

Now that I have over a thousand posts under my belt, what next?

How about over a thousand books?

The picture above is a filtered version of my classroom library that I had to bring home (I gave away close to five hundred of them). Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, schools are not allowing us to bring in our own furniture into the classroom in order create enough space for distancing desks.

Thus, I created space in my home for the foreseeable future. So, why not make the best out of a situation?

That’s why I present:

Operation: ROL (Read Out Library)

While I’ve read a good chunk of the books on those shelves, each one I brought in was done by recommendation or interest. At some point, I would like to read all of them.

I also have a ton of books on my Kindle that are unread, but again, I really want to read at some point.

Why not make that some point right now?

The plan is to catalogue each book in a simple database and check them off as I read them. To stay disciplined, I’m going to have to avoid buying new ones impulsively.

Understanding there’s always going to be something new and interesting each year, I’m setting a hard cap at only being able to purchase five.

This is going to be an exciting long-term challenge and given the variety of titles I have, I don’t anticipate I’ll get bored with what’s available.

Once the database is curated, I’ll make a section on my website to keep track of my progress and offer reviews along the way.

The timeframe of this challenge is tough to call. My current pace is 80-100 books a year, sometimes less.

Given that I am a full-time teacher with various other projects on the go, it might take a bit longer. However, my pace seems to increase the older my kids get, so who knows?

One thing is for certain:

At the end of this challenge, I will confidently be able to say that I fully enjoyed what I already have…

And read a lot of damn good books.

At the heart of a story, one in which we believe to be true…

Want to be true…

Even go as far to defend being true…

What we find is a myth. It’s not a historical account of what really occurred and if we had only paid attention to the signs, we could’ve avoided the pain of finding out.

We could react by admonishing it, throwing it away and curse ourselves for ever believing it in the first place. Or, we can take a different approach.

We can ask, what is the purpose of telling a story?

Why does the myth exist in the first place?

What was the lesson this was trying to achieve?

How did it inspire people to think differently, live differently and strive for something more?

When you can answer those, you’ll come to appreciate why the myth still lives.

If you’re never willing to speak up about what’s getting you angry?

This isn’t just about going on a rant to friends, or over social media, but to genuinely speak up to the people who need to hear it.

It’s about breaking comfort zones, entering into a very awkward position and being willing to put yourself out there without any idea of what might happen.

There’s a chance it might hurt.

There’s a chance it could backfire.

But there’s no chance of it getting better unless you’re willing to do it.

“You’re a good writer, you just need practice and experience putting it out there.” -Thomas Jast, 2006

This is post number 1000 on this site.

One thousand.

While there are many bloggers out there who can lay claim to that number, this is particularly special to me because it’s the one site I’ve consistently posted on for many years straight.

Back in 2006, I took on the pseudonym “Zor” and posted articles on Tommy|Zor, finishing that particular site with a now off the shelf book, “How to Slack Your Way to Success.”

Then I shifted over to a site called “ProductiveGrad” as an homage to my time in academia, then transferred over to a site called “The Daily Writer.”

The DailyWriter was really the genesis of what I’m doing here, but I lacked the discipline to keep it consistent. However, I knew I was on to something because I had several people tell me they really enjoyed my (almost) daily posts there.

Eventually, I dumped it all and bought vitomichienzi.com.

This is where I’ve virtually been since August 2015 from my first post until this one.

What made this different was there was no specific purpose I was aiming to achieve. I wasn’t writing to build an audience, then monetize and cash in on being a blogger. I’ve seen that play out countless times over the last decade and a bit and it always ends the same.

I just wanted a place to capture my thoughts and put them out there as both practice for my craft and in case other people found them useful.

Since its inception, I’ve given my best to each post. Sometimes they hit and sometimes they fall flat.

I’ve written over a hundred book reviews, published six books (seventh is finished and in post-production), been booked for several talks and responded to countless emails.

I’ve written these posts by hand, through dictation, in various writing programs, on my desktop, my wife’s laptop and my phone. I’ve written long ones, short ones and everything in-between.

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned is the only way posts get written is you park yourself in front of your writing tool and write. That’s it.

I am proud of the work I’m doing here and I’m glad I stopped listening to the “blogging gurus.” Most of them are either gone, writing fluff posts as sales funnels or still churning out the same crap since 2008.

I am thankful to the many writing mentors over the years who really helped me hone my craft. You can definitely see a progression and most of that is just confidence in my own writing.

In particular, I want to thank those of you who stuck with me and continuously respond to my work (Andrew, Don, Donny, Amanda, Chris, Karen, Megan, Alex and Ryan to name a few). Knowing you’re still reading is an encouragement for me to keep going.

To those of you who do read, but don’t respond or reach out, know that I see you coming in and appreciate taking the time to visit.

So what’s next?

Another thousand posts, obviously.

And a thousand after that.

However far I get, I can unequivocally say I’m getting in a lot of practice.

As the start of the school year looms closer, my burnout from the previous year is being replaced with anxiety.

I’ve done my best to recover and get myself into a new mindset, but with changing recommendations and uncertainty of expectations, especially with a micron thin plan in place, it hasn’t been relaxing.

There has been no “vacation.”

What I do know is the future of education is looking drastically different. And not in the way we expected it would eventually be, but paradigm shifting changes overnight.

Whatever we were doing before is not going to work anymore.
(The question of if what we were doing before ever worked is a different discussion)

We always knew change was coming and now it’s here.

To get myself in a new frame of mind, I’m pulling in one of the boldest military strategies:

Burn the Boats

This strategy, made famous by Hernán Cortés, puts you on the shore of a new land with no option of turning back.

Whatever I’ve done before is done.
Whatever resources I’ve pulled from are no longer valid as is.
Whatever worked for the classroom before is being altered.

I am a new teacher on a new land.

It’s time to build a new future.