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.

Now, more than ever, this is difficult.

We tend to envision our enemy as some kind of faceless person who is out there, somewhere, vehemently against everything we stand for in life.

It’s easy to say we can love them and let them be because they don’t have a face or name… or they might have a name, but they are so distanced from us we don’t feel the connection.

However, your enemy could be someone close to you. The definition of enemy isn’t restricted to military combatant or oppressor, but someone you know and love who you feel stands against you—even unknowingly.

How hard is it to love that person?

To love someone that you want nothing to do with, that has wronged you, estranged themselves from you or harmed you in a very personal way almost seems impossible.

Yet, we can still choose to love that person.

Not approve of their choices, or accept their thoughts, actions or behaviours, but love them.

To do so would still be one of the most radical things you can do in the world right now.

The story of Moses is commonplace among any Judeo-Christian society. Even if you’ve never opened a Bible, or caught a few minutes of Charlton Heston demanding Pharaoh to let his people go, the Exodus story is familiar.

While we can argue the archeological and historical evidence if such a story ever happened, there’s two very valuable lessons we can learn from it.

Quick summary—the Israelites are enslaved by Egypt, they cry for freedom, God hears their cry, appears to Moses in a burning bush, asks him to act as his messenger, Moses refuses then accepts, unleashes ten plagues on Egypt, frees the Israelites, parts the water, wanders the desert, receives the Commandments and dies before going into the promised land.

The first lesson is God didn’t enhance or equip Moses to accomplish this work. Moses was a poor speaker, had minimal leadership training and possessed basic shepherding tools.

Thus, he could not use what he did not have. His brother Aaron spoke for him and he used his shepherd staff as the conduit for God’s power.

Lesson 1: Use what you have and trust it’ll be enough.

The second lesson is what happens after the Israelites got their freedom. For so long, they cried for a release from their slavery and when it finally happened, you’d think it would be happily ever after.

Instead, at the first sign of trouble, they wanted to go back to Egypt. Being free and having to figure it out for themselves was too much for them to handle.

Lesson 2: How often do we run back to the our own familiar ways at the first sign of trouble?

The commitment to freedom, or a new way of life, means you’ll need to use the tools at your disposal and be willing to wander the desert for a long period of time before you finally get there.

Sometimes, we make this journey multiple times in our lives. But the trouble is always there and the signposts aren’t always clear.

However, the lessons have lasted for thousands of years because nothing about it has changed.