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How this project found me and why I can’t resist it

project found me and I can't resist

This project found me and I just have to share it.

The other day I was surfing the net, as one does, tidying up hundreds of tabs (I am pathological with those) and came upon one old tab that I left open as a resource to study Javascript. I had it opened on Chrome* when a message popped up informing me that they know I know Lithuanian and would I be willing to contribute to translating this page into Lithuanian.

And first of all, WOW. I know they are watching but it’s still weird when a random page you visit is interacting directly. But that’s how it is now, ha?

Secondly, I have this belief that we are constantly being given opportunities to do something with our lives, but we also must ask if this new opportunity aligns with our main goal.

So, of course, I decided to check it out and investigated the project. The translation to the Lithuanian project has 167 tasks on GitHub, and only 4 out of them are done (and those 4 I must say are done offhandedly). So ok… I instantly (if I waited I probably would have found some weird excuse not to do it) wrote to the creator of the repository to ask if there still is a need for translation. I got an answer next day that he could make me a maintainer if I want to proceed with it (the project was dropped 2 years ago), so now I had to think if this aligns with what I am seeking?

Project - translate JavaScript tutorial to Lithuanian

I am a person who likes to think through things and when it is hard to come up with a decision I use the advantages/disadvantages kind of list, I usually feel quite soon which side I want to try and find more points. Here is how it went for me with this project.

Why I should do it:

  1. It will help me understand JavaScript better, because hey, English is not my mother tongue and I do sometimes struggle with some concepts; translating them directly might help me root the information further.
  2. I will have a project to contribute to whenever I have time, and it will show on my GitHub profile, which will showcase my determination to any future employer. Sure, it’s not purely coding but it is contributing.
  3. Translating educational text to Lithuanian might help someone back in my home country to learn JavaScript. Sure, Lithuanians are good at learning languages and most young people know English, but not everyone, and if even one person (except for me) would benefit from this information, I would be happy that it helped.

 

And because there is a dark side to everything, I have to ask why I shouldn’t do it:

  1. It will require a lot of time and translation is not exactly the best way to learn something, because mostly you concentrate on translating not memorizing, or actually understanding (that’s why there are so many bad translations out there because it becomes automatic after a while).
  2. It will be slowing down my progress of learning, and if I don’t finish it before getting a job, it might take even longer to finish it. Though, maybe if I do talk about it on my social media, I will find more contributors and the project will be done sooner?

 

What am I kidding, I am excited about this opportunity! I could find a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t do it, but I know I will always counterattack it because I should at least try. Though the problem with me is that I don’t usually just try, I think hard before I start something and once I do, I have to finish it. That’s why I sometimes don’t even start on some of my ideas (mind you I didn’t think hard when I started this blog, I just created it all in a couple of hours and I am happy I did).

Even if you are a beginner you can contribute to projects

I hope you have learned a couple of things from my post.

  • One is – always read what those pop-up banners are saying. I am actually joking, I don’t ever do that, I have a trained banner blindness, I don’t know why I looked this time, but I am glad I did.
  • There are projects even for beginners that you can contribute to, so don’t wait until you feel completely ready. I don’t feel ready, but I am willing to step over my discomfort. Here are a few open-source for beginners links I have personally saved to work on in a near future:
  • Contact other people, you never know what might come out of it. Networking is the best way to move forward in any career change. And trust me I know how hard it is, especially after two years of being stuck at home with a baby (pandemic has nothing to do with it).
  • And finally, check if the opportunity that comes knocking is right for you. Not all of them are.

I have learned the hard way that sometimes opportunities test your willingness to stay on course and tries to seduce you with some easy way out. And there are no easy ways out. But it is as simple as asking, will this get me where I want to be or diverts me further away? An example could be a job offer in your old career when you are trying to learn something new and change your ways. If there is a financial need, it is ok for a short while if you still leave space and time to learn and implement the change, but it does complicate the journey.

And I am not even talking about those magical passive income tutorials on YouTube. They all sound so easy and fun. And then you find yourself watching hours of content for all the ways you could have all that money rolling in while you sleep… but all the while only the people who do the talking actually got that money and you just wasted your perfect time to study. Every single opportunity requires some kind of sacrifice/investment – be it your time, your money, your attention, your knowledge. It’s never passive, it might sound like that because that person has been doing it for years, but for whoever is just starting out…

Well, I could keep on going but this isn’t a blog about that.

This is a blog to inspire and study together with me. I can’t promise we won’t fail but I can promise we will definitely learn if we keep on going. 

So, am I complicating my own journey or opening new doors for myself?

Time will show.

* I use Safari, Chrome, and Firefox – all for different things:

  • I like the convenience of Safari and several perks that it has between Mac and iPhone, but it is limited when it comes to other things.
  • I use Chrome for my coding studies and most stuff tech.
  • And I use Firefox for webpages that require a lot of RAM, somehow Firefox can suffer the longest through multiple tabs (I like opening consecutively at least twenty new pages of houses on the realestate.com.au page, Safari always crashes, Chrome isn’t a cookie with this either). I hope one day I will have a better explanation as to why it is like that.
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