A grad student asked me how I've stayed at the bench for twenty years without going crazy from the repetition. I told her the truth: I stopped chasing the big result and started loving the careful doing of it, the clean technique, the honest measurement, the attention itself. The breakthrough may or may not come, and I've made my peace that the patient work is already the reward.
More people experience this than they realize.
You find your reward in the patient, careful work itself, not in the breakthrough that may never come.
If this sounds familiar, the Library can help you find the bigger picture.