Author Archives: David Truss

Fees and services

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Have you noticed how customer convenience is no longer a priority? We are consumers to be targeted for maximum profit. It’s not a world where the customer is always right, but rather the customer is always ripe… for squeezing out a few dollars more.

Example 1: I went to book a flight for my summer visit to see my mom in Toronto. In the airline website the lowest price didn’t even include a carry-on bag, just a personal item. When I looked at the next price option up, with the only added feature being a carryon bag, the cost was over $140 more. That’s before paying even more to pre-select a seat.

Example 2: We used to pay for premium channels on TV, they still had commercials but they also had movies and shows regular cable didn’t have. Along came streaming. Anytime watching and no commercials. You pay a premium and you avoid those annoying interruptions. Now commercials are back unless you pay a premium on top of your premium.

Everything is tiered not to provide you with better service, but to make the tiers such that you never want the cheap deals. No, you are enticed into paying more to get what you used to get for less. You are priced out of the deal that got you to consider the purchase, and put into flashy named premium, executive, and luxury levels that cost more to add features that you used to expect as the basic minimum.

“Bundle and Save!”

This sounds great, if the bundle didn’t actually just give you things you actually needed. If the bundle really added luxury rather than essentials. Who travels from Vancouver to Toronto with just a purse or a small backpack that can fit under the seat in front of you? Is that really an option? 

‘Customer’ used to mean more than a ‘mark’ to be deceived and taken advantage of with added fees for basic necessities. Good service used to be a value added, not an added service charge. It used to be that fees and services added real value, but now they are simple a means to expect the customer to pay more… for less.

Lost in sensationalism

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We’ve lost our plot as a species. We’ve lost our way. I haven’t been a fan of the news for a while now, but I still see enough of it to be disappointed and underwhelmed.

“If it bleeds, it leads.”

Give us the dirt, highlight the disaster, sensationalize everything. If it’s not a big enough story, find a more controversial angle. And sadly, if that’s not enough, exaggerate. Or worse yet, perpetuate a blatant lie… which is somehow ok by news standards because then they are still reporting (fact-checking can come later). This is awful because when you highlight a lie over and over it becomes more believable. It becomes the story. The apology or correction won’t get the same attention.

And we eat it up. We share before we fact check. We trust one-sided narratives, especially when they sensationalize in our favour. Meanwhile we are equally quick to discredit the ‘other side’ as fake news.

We are lost in sensationalism. And we can’t seem to find our way out. Polarizing points are thrown at us. Anger, hate, disgust, and disasterare worth our attention. Nothing else matters, nothing else makes the headlines, gets retweeted, or reshared, or discussed on podcasts and news stations.

And now AI is producing such realistic video content that it’s almost impossible to know if what you are watching is real. This is like putting sensationalism on steroids. Pump up the fake news, create doubt and division. Promote anger and disgust. Get those clicks, those likes, those reposts, and you will be financially rewarded. So what if you also leave everyone upset, confused, and lost.

Not listening

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It was an accumulation of being busy and getting poor sleep, but last night I hit a wall. I could tell my body was heading to a crash because of the tell-tale sign for me… feeling constantly dehydrated. That’s my cue to slow things down. But I couldn’t, I didn’t slow down, and so my body gave me the metaphorical middle finger and said, enough.

Is it too cliche to say that we need to listen to our bodies? I’ve been better in some aspects. I’ve been taking more consistent rest days in my workout schedule. I’ve done a few lunchtime 4-5 minute walks through our ravine trail next to my school. I’ve been more thoughtful than usual about my diet.

I need to also listen to my body, take the cues, and then focus on my physical as well as mental wellbeing. And if need be, take a sick day. I’ve pushed through too many times and the results are always a longer recovery, all the while being less resourceful than usual. I’m a slow learner, but I’m learning to listen to my body.

New student day

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Today our Grade 9 students will lead us as we welcome next year’s new students to spend the day with us. Being a school that doesn’t have a catchment, we get only 1-3 students from each middle school, and a few from a neighbouring homeschool program. So come September students don’t really know anyone.

This day relieves the anxiety of the first day of September. It introduces new students to our small community and shows them how welcoming our student body is.

They will learn about us and our routines, and equally as important, they will meet their classmates. I love seeing students excited in September to reconnect with students they met today. Excitement rises, anxiety lowers, and it helps us get the year started right.

It’s a very busy day with a PAC pot luck and meeting to end the day, but it is worth it to help pull our community together.

Undefined

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I do not think I’m unique. I don’t believe this is a flex. I’m sure we all have it. We all have that undefined part of us. The part others don’t see. The part that we hide not because we are being candid or elusive. No. It’s not that. It’s… unexplainable. Undefined.

It’s the ‘I’ that only I know. It keeps me grounded, yet it also makes me uneasy. It keeps me centered, yet can also make me a feel a little unbalanced. It boosts my confidence, yet can cripple me with doubt. Undefined.

I know it’s there, but I can’t see it, can’t illuminate it, and yet it is ever-present. It can feed bravery as much as cowardice. It can protect me, and also make me feel vulnerable. It has its own voice, a voice that’s within, yet doesn’t feel like mine. It offers alternative perspectives I didn’t know I had, has questions I should know the answer to, but don’t. Undefined.

It’s not a schizophrenic voice, it’s uniquely mine, but not of one mind. An undefined perspective, an undefinable perspective which I know serves me more than hinders me. I know it’s at the core who I can be without inhibitions, without restraint. Powerful, thoughtful, full of potential… and yet somehow undefined.

Love the process

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That doesn’t mean the process is easy. It doesn’t mean you wake up full of enthusiasm every day. It doesn’t mean there aren’t hard days.

Just commit to putting yourself out there. Not for an end result, not for a reward, or accolades, or achievement badges. Do enjoy those when they come, celebrate as often as you want… but don’t show up seeking the outcomes.

Show up because you made a commitment. Show up because that’s how you define your success. Show up to show up because that’s what you do, and you’ll naturally fall in love with the process.

Once you’ve fallen in love with the process, then showing up is easy, and even on the hard days you won’t struggle to show up. Then, and only then, will the real rewards come. Again, celebrate them but don’t focus on them. Focus on showing up and keep the love of the process going.

Teaching wisdom

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We all know that one person who didn’t do well in school and isn’t ‘book smart’ but if there is a problem to solve he or she will figure it out. Or someone who’s a tinkerer, who dabbles in fixing anything from a small electric toy to a car engine… maybe they were good at school, maybe not, but they solve problems we would struggle with. This isn’t traditionally the kind of wisdom taught in schools. It’s born out of curiosity and ingenuity.

How can we make learning at school more like this? More like the problem solvers we are going to need. We aren’t going to out book smart AI. We aren’t going to write reports as well as a smartly prompted AI. But even a good AI isn’t going to figure out why a sink suddenly has low pressure any time soon.

Maybe that will come, but for now we are going to be able to out problem solve AI or at least be the ones that figure out what to ask AI to help us out.

So how do we maximize the learning at school to provide students with the kind of wisdom they need to be resourceful in an AI filled world? It won’t be with wrote memorization. It won’t be the review tests. It won’t be the book reports or the 15 math questions going home for homework.

What kind of learning experiences are we creating at school? Do they foster wisdom, systems thinking, and/or problem solving? Are we getting students excited about being learners and problem solvers? Are we creating environments for creators or compliant workers? Because the path of AI and robotics is quickly making compliant workers redundant.

I don’t know if we can explicitly teach wisdom, but we can create experiences where wisdom is valued and the right answer isn’t predetermined. We can design problems that require collaboration, creativity, and insight. And we can teach students to harness AI so that it serves us and we add value to what it can do with us.

Creating unique and challenging learning experiences, with students helping us design these experiences or even designing them themselves…. This is the path forward for schools. If a student spends the day only doing things AI can do better than them, what’s school really teaching?

Sphere of control

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Do you ever think about the things that consume your thoughts and how much control you have over those things? What are the things that concern you that you can change versus those that you cannot change? And how does that compare to the time spent on these different things?

There’s a difference between living in anxiety and stress versus living a life you design for yourself. Spending time thinking about, and worrying about things beyond your control is anxiety building and stressful. On the other hand, although you might still feel stressed about making good choices and doing the right thing when you have the ability to control the outcome, this is far more empowering. Worrying about what you cannot change is playing victim to circumstance. Whereas, strategizing about doing well with the things you can change is designing your own circumstances.

Sure, there is still room for doubt. Yes, you might make mistakes. It’s possible to worry too much about things you do have control over… but in all these cases the opportunity is there to alter your own destiny. Meanwhile the person perseverating about things they have no control over is punishing themselves with worry and anxiety with no potential for positive outcome.

What’s within your sphere of control? That’s the healthy place to focus your attention.

The power of music

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I spend a lot of my leisure time in listening mode. Usually books and podcasts. I’m a bit of a learning nerd and like consuming information through audio. But recently I’m finding myself listening more and more to music.

Maybe it’s a mood, maybe it’s just June and I’m really tired, but I find every time I try to listen to something informative my mind just drifts. I lose focus, I lose the plot.

So, I’ve moved to music. I’ve listened to more music in the last week than I usually listen to in any given month. Music has been feeding my soul. It has been recharging my mental and physical batteries and making me feel alive.

I have so much respect and admiration for the creators of music. They put musical notes and lyrics together that touch people’s souls. They move us, inspire us, change our moods, and have us singing along with them.

Powerful.

I tip my hat to all the creatives out there who alter our reality with their beats. You change our lives in so many positive ways.

Honouring Ceremony

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Last night I went to our district’s Indigenous Education Grad Honouring Ceremony. It’s a celebration of heritage and culture. It reminds me that we need to make sure that we provide spaces for people of all backgrounds to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be honoured.

This seems particularly prescient with what is happening south of our border. Using book-banning in Texas as an example, individual communities can decide what books are acceptable and not acceptable to be in schools. Books about different cultures or life choices can be banned simply because the majority are not in favour of them. I am dumbfounded that this is something happening in 2025. But it is.

Inclusion, acceptance, tolerance, and ultimately kindness and love are all being threatened. I grew up in a very multicultural family. We celebrated our differences through food, and at meal time everyone was always welcome. That was our way of honouring. We welcomed you even if your potato salad had raisins in it. But jokes aside, I see what’s happening in the States right now and it scares me.

Our work is not done yet. Inequities still fall along heritage lines, and injustices of the past are far from reconciled. And in this polarized environment, we need events like our Indigenous Education Grad Honouring Ceremony to remind us to celebrate our differences, respect and value heritage, and provide an avenue where the cultures and heritage of our youth are not only respected, but revered and truly honoured.