1000 Days and The End of The Streak

By: Connor Lenahan

Late in 2013 I had an idea. I thought about what I could do with Unbreakable, which at that point was a young side project I updated every month or so, to make it more fun. I looked to the original inspiration for this blog – Rembert Browne’s 500 Days Asunder – and figured out what I wanted to do. Rembert was going to write every day, for 500 straight days, until he finished his graduate degree at Columbia. He never finished that degree, getting hired to Grantland before the end date. I set out to see if I could hit that 500-day target.

As of this post, I’ve now written for 500 days straight twice. Today marks the 1,000th consecutive day of posting on Unbreakable. It’s fitting that today is also the target I developed for myself along the way.

I did not know when I started my challenge to myself that this streak of posting would forever change my life. For the last 31 months, I have logged on and posted something on Unbreakable. I’ve had more anxiety dreams about missing posts than I could ever properly express. Hell, I almost lost the streak within the first ten days getting busy with life. But it kept going.

But life is different now. On January 1st, 2014 I was an excited, 19-year-old college freshman that was happily ready to be a college student forever. Over the course of the 1000 days since I have become a 22-year-old senior that is grasping with the need to find employment after graduating. I still have vivid memories of myself at the first couple days of posting, and that’s precisely why I’ve kept the streak alive. This blog will stand as a log of everything that’s happened in my life over the in the past two and a half years.

But it’s time for a change.

Over the past few weeks and months, I’ve been struggling to find daily articles. I’ve been getting busier with living an adult life. I’ve searched for jobs and gotten ready for a life outside of Boston University. But I’ve also noticed something that I refuse to let myself fall prey to. I am getting repetitive and blowing off posts far too often.

Unbreakable isn’t fun to read, nor is it fun to write, when it’s clear that I’m preoccupied with the rest of the world. So it’s time to change things up.

The streak of posting will be ending. It’s time, and I feel great.

I won’t stop posting articles on Unbreakable. Much to the contrary, I will hopefully be posting better content going forward. The only way that can logically happen is to remove the self-imposed expectation for a post every single day, even when there’s nothing major that happened that day. My hope is to write two or three articles a week, but make them honest, personal, and worth your time.

The decision-making process for ending the streak has been eye opening. I’ve mentioned it to some of the people closest to me, and those who know what it’s like to produce every single day and the support I’ve gotten is heartening. What’s made me feel comfortable, and truly happy, is that I don’t feel like I’m letting myself down, nor anyone else. I wanted to prove that I could post every single day, and I did, for way longer than I ever thought I would.

The stress of adult life is enough to deal with before adding on the research and writing time for subpar articles. If I had an extra day to write then it’s more fun for me and more fun for my friends to read. I think this makes everyone happier. It certainly makes me happier.

I am now and will forever be elated that anyone reads Unbreakable, let alone the crowd that has stuck around for years now. It’s not even a goodbye. This is the beginning of the next era of Unbreakable, and if I have anything to say about it, the best era yet.

Thank you for supporting this crazy project for the last 1,000 days. Let’s make this next chapter better than the last.

Even though the streak might be broken, I still remain Unbreakable. That’s all that really matters.