I recently finished a project that’s been running for a while, and it felt particularly satisfying to finish it. This wasn’t because the project was unpleasant or something that was wearing me down. I’m nearly always doing a few things, big or small, but haven’t finished up anything large recently, it was a nice and welcome feeling.

The project itself ran from October 2016 to now (May 2017), and was a weekly event where a couple of teenagers got together in the local Le Chéile Centre with a group of seniors and did about an hour of 1:1 tuition on how to use mobile phones, laptops, iPads etc. I know similar initiatives are run elsewhere. In this case, the seniors were mainly organised by Sean Horkan and co (ex-Rotary members, retired professionals), and I got a few school friends (St Gerald’s) to teach them, and my sister brought a few of her friends too (St Joseph’s). The project itself was thoroughly enjoyable, I learned a lot in organising it, and spending time with a group of elderly people was new, it’s not something a lot of teenagers do, excepting their grandparents.

Overall, the project took up a decent amount of time and effort. Of course, there were times when things didn’t go right. On the whole though, the project progressed well and finished out with the participants happy and little left to worry about. All wrapped up.

When I finished the last session, it wasn’t a sigh of relief that nothing had gone awfully wrong, but a contentment that this had been brought to fruition, with no loose ends. I suppose it’s the same thing as finishing any job or task, something as everyday as finishing a homework question brings a certain satisfaction too - that’s finished, done, complete. However, the scale in this sense is far different; something that runs for months as opposed to 5 minutes with a pen, and the sheer magnitude of work done is disproportionate. The feeling was a happy contentment that good work was done. Completion. I’d like to stress that it wasn’t the weight lifted from your mind when you’re piled with things to do, more positive than that. Maybe it’s comparable to an album versus a single song, an amalgamation of all the pieces to a single big one.

I thought it was similar to the feeling of progress when you make headway in a large project. Like with the Fusor, I feel motivated, encouraged, happy when I get something significant done, I feel I’m moving in the right direction, but there is still more to do. However, in the case of completing the project, it’s the whole package, reaching the destination.

Sin é.

- Thanks to Sean Horkan and friends and Mary and all at Le Chéile for making the project happen.