The Option You Didn’t Know You Had

I was 19 when I discovered Thanksgiving didn't have to be turkey.

My friend's Italian family served pasta, meatballs, bread—and I sat there thinking: Wait. This was always an option?

It blew my mind. I just assumed turkey was Thanksgiving. In the same way, I assumed there was one way to run a classroom, one way to structure a budget, one way to solve most problems.

I didn't know I was choosing. I thought I was just doing what you were supposed to do.

The Invisible Default

Years later, teaching in South Carolina, I kept seeing inefficient systems. When I'd ask why things were done that way, I'd get the same answer: "That's just how it's always been done."

When I'd share how other districts handled it differently—often more effectively—people would look at me like I was speaking another language. "That's impossible." "That would never work here."

They weren't rejecting my ideas. They genuinely couldn't comprehend that there was another way.

The default had become invisible.

The Inherited Approach

Here's what I've realized: most problems aren't hard to solve. They're hard to see clearly.

We inherit approaches without questioning them:

• The way holidays have to look

• The way careers have to progress

• The way relationships have to work

We mistake one approach for the only approach. Then we spend years trying to improve a system we never consciously chose in the first place.

You're not solving the wrong problem. You're solving it with inherited tools that might not fit anymore.

The Backward Revolution

For decades, high jumpers went over the bar forward. Everyone was utilizing the same basic approach until Dick Fosbury showed up in 1968 and went backward.

The "Fosbury Flop" looked ridiculous. Coaches said it was dangerous. Commentators said it would never work.

He won Olympic gold. Now everyone does it his way.

The bar was always the same height. The approach changed everything.

Your Stuck Problems

Look at the problems you keep trying to solve:

The relationship that keeps having the same fights → What if the issue isn't what you're saying but how you're having the conversation?

Money stress despite budgeting → What if your budget reflects values you inherited rather than chose?

Work that drains you despite success → What if you're measuring success by someone else's metrics?

You can't build a new approach on top of an old system that's incompatible with it.

If you want an Italian Thanksgiving, you can't also commit to a traditional turkey dinner. If you want to restructure how you work, you can't keep all the old systems running simultaneously.

You have to clear the inherited approach to make room for a conscious one.

That's scary. The default feels safe because everyone else is doing it. Innovation feels risky because you're the only one (at first).

But staying stuck trying to optimize an approach that fundamentally doesn't work? That's the real risk.

The Result

Lori and I tried the Italian Thanksgiving—It was incredible. 

We also had an international Thanksgiving where our guests each brought their favorite dish from their home country. It turns out the tradition worth keeping isn’t the bird, it’s the guests. It’s the gratitude. We are back to the bird this year, but it’s nice to know we have options and don’t have to run the same playbook every year.

You don't have to reject all traditions or reinvent everything. But you do need to see which approaches are serving you and which ones you're serving.

Italian Thanksgiving taught me that invisible defaults stay invisible until someone shows you there's another option.

Consider this your permission: there's another option.

Now you get to choose which one is actually yours.

The Question

What problem have you been trying to solve the same way everyone else does, without questioning if there's a completely different approach?

What would you do if you knew you could go backward over the bar?

This work is meant to be reflective and shared. If you enjoyed it, let me know. I read every response. If you think someone else will enjoy it, please share!

-Ricky