Tom Fasano

Setting goals is a great way to get things done, but sometimes the point isn’t efficiency or even explanation — it’s endurance. Case in point: Les Stewart, an Australian man who decided to manually type out every number from one to one million on a typewriter. In words. One finger. Over sixteen years.

He started in 1982 and finished in 1998, working in disciplined bursts (20 minutes on the hour, every hour), producing nearly 20,000 pages and burning through a thousand ink ribbons across seven manual typewriters. Partially paralyzed after serving in Vietnam, Stewart chose a challenge that fit both his limitations and his love of typing — something he’d once taught professionally.

It’s tempting to ask why, but that’s usually the wrong question. The better one is why not? Some projects exist purely to be finished, and the quiet stubbornness required to see them through is its own kind of achievement.