Quilnmous

Editing something on Wikipedia always seemed like such a big and scary thing. Of course, that has always been the case before I started blogging and writing online articles.

So guess what? I was doing some research tonight, and I noticed an entry had the wrong date on it. And I saw the little “Edit” link, so I clicked on it.

All of a sudden I was in Wikipedia HTML Land. And there it was…an editing screen. (Similar to the one I’m using right now to write this entry.) So I fixed the date. And then I clicked on the “Save” button.

It was such a tiny moment. But it wouldn’t be one of my 43 Things, if it wasn’t a meaningful one. I felt like I had just put my foot on the surface of the moon. Am I supposed to say something significant about “one giant leap” now?

Anyway, I did it!

However, the original intent of this goal is to do a full entry in Wikipedia, not merely change the word “2009” to “2010.” And my little date edit is attributed to my IP address, because I haven’t created a Wikipedia user account yet.

So I will still leave this goal here for now, until I accomplish that. But let me tell you, I’m halfway there already, and I feel really good about it!

Several years ago, I thought this was going to my pet project and the direction I would take my career in. But since then, there are so many more interesting things that I would rather learn about, and then there is a whole other direction to steer my career towards.

So now, this is only an interest I would like to reconnect with, at some point in my life. But apparently I have to make room for the 43 most pressing goal ideas right now, and this is not one of them. So I am going to drop this goal for now. Someday, I shall return to it, but I’d like to work on other things right now.

When I listed this goal, I thought about famous people and I thought about fictional characters. At the time, none stood out in my mind, so that is why I hadn’t made an entry yet.

Tonight, I started thinking about taskmasters who are good at accomplishing their long term goals. And one name came immediately to mind: KashaBunny. Her ability to juggle different detailed tasks, as reported in her account here on 43 Things, is just amazing. She has wrapped up a major educational accomplishment as one phase of her life, while finishing off a whole slew of medium-term and other long-term goals.

I understand that this strength of hers sometimes gets to her, and leaves her feeling a bit uneasy with the void of planned business (pronounced “busy-ness”). But I see it as a great strength, and I admire her so much for how good she is at it.

I’m not sure how she does it. She will report that she has 10 things to do. Then the next day she is down to 8 things. Then the next day down to 7. And I’m thinking, that’s 3 months in my book of working to get things done, and she did it in 3 days. But I do know that she will take little life-breaks, to refresh herself for another session of achievements. And I get the sense that she is successful at finishing things by working hard, applying her will and determination, all the while maintaining a strong sense of direction toward her goal (kind of like a marathon runner must visualize in order to get to the finish line).

So I will use her as an inspiration to me, to accomplish my goals in life – short-, medium-, and long-term. And I sense that she will be cheering me on. Thanks, KashaBunny.