Hard work can sometimes bring success.
Last weekend was fun. I didn't get to bed before midnight either night. Sometimes work is like that.
On Friday afternoon, while fine-tuning a paper about a model of intramolecular interactions in myosin, a protein integral to muscle contraction, I found a paper about an experiment with a related protein.
At first, I was excited to find that my model predicted the experimental results. But my excitement evaporated when I read the authors' simple, logical and elegant explanation — an explanation that completely contradicted my results. I felt sick thinking about what seemed to be wasted effort.
I thought about another time when my work had disintegrated at the final moment. Several years ago, while finishing a manuscript, I found a paper that had been published 30 years earlier. This paper presented 'my' idea and explained it 'my' way. I had felt a mix of emotions. Although it was nice to know I'd been right, I had nothing to show for it.
But on Friday evening, after a few hours of frantic thinking, I hit on an idea that explained why my model was correct. As the weekend passed, my excitement mounted and the idea gained clarity. I went to bed late Sunday night, calm and happy. The paper had survived the moment of doubt and had emerged stronger. Weekends like this make me glad to be a scientist. In science, sometimes you work hard and fail, but sometimes you work hard and succeed. The failures are what make success so sweet.
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Walcott, S. A strong idea. Nature 460, 1167 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7259-1167b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7259-1167b