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.

I had answers I knew were right and yet was afraid to say them.

Every time I spoke with a person, they would always speak to me in a convincing way. They had confidence in their thoughts.

My own thoughts, reasonings, readings and research always felt inadequate.

It was as if all the thoughts in my head were meant to be challenged and squashed. I just accepted that every person I spoke with was much smarter than I was.

Then I met with highly intelligent people…

And realized most of the people I’ve spoken with in my life are full of crap.

I’m no longer afraid to speak up, to challenge and to provoke.

And if I’m wrong, which happens often,
I’m not afraid to change my way of thinking.

I won’t ever get it all
or get it right.
But I’m getting closer every day.

There’s a rule in writing for when you get stuck:

Just write the next sentence.

That’s all you have to do. Just write the next one.

After that sentence is complete, you write the one after that and you keep doing it until you’ve found your momentum again.

It’s easy to draw a blank or end up in despair about what to do, but if you’re willing to just worry about what to write in the very next sentence, you’ll make it.

If you’re stuck right now in life and lost your momentum, ask yourself: What is the next sentence?

That’s all you need to do next.

Just for today, I’m going to make it work.

I’m only focused on this one particular day and nothing else.

I will resist temptation,
find the willpower,
move forward,
and do that one thing.

I’m not worried about yesterday, tomorrow, next week or years from now.

My concern is not the decisions of the past or the schedule for the future.

I just need to focus on today.

And when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll focus on that day as well.