This is a story I read years ago from Reddit that has guided me through most parts of my life and whenever I want to engage in more that I can handle I remember it and calm myself down. The original story is lost, so I can only give to you my memory of it.

The story is about several hikers in what could possibly be their longest journey. One day they are challenged by a misterious man to complete a walk. They are told that the first one to arrive at the finish line will receive a generous prize. However, they won’t know where exactly is the finish line, their only tool will be a compass specially designed to point to the end and nothing else. No length is provided, no unevenness, and of course, no map.

The hikers, confident on their experience and physical shape, started as fast as they could, some of them even running at the beginning. All except one, they called him the buddhist. He set himself a different pace, instead of going as fast as he could, he decided to go as fast as he could maintain indefinitely, which is a very different pace. He asked to himself: how long could I stay going at this velocity? If the answer was not forever, then it was too fast. But he also posed to himself another question: can I go faster? That way he set his pace, the buddhist pace, and mantained it.

At the beginning the other hikers overtook the buddhist since they were almost running, like if they were in a marathon. But it was not a marathon, it was a different kind of race. With that in mind the buddhist forgot about the others and simply continued his way at the velocity he decided. The days passed and the buddhist didn’t meet the other hikers, they have taken a big advantage, but nonetheless he remained still, constant, and with the same pace always, with no rest but without accelerating himself, always the same speed.

The race continued and the days passed, a week after it has started the buddhist finally met the other hikers. To his surprise, they were exhausted and walking really slow. After a week going so fast they had consumed all their batteries and were left with no energy. The buddhist looked at them, fresher than a lettuce, and continued. Now it was him the one overtaking the others. They were also astonished. The buddhist started so slow and they started so fast, how is it that he is here overtaking us and we can no longer compete with him? ‘In the long run, being constant is better than sprinting.’ The buddhist answered. The others couldn’t help themselves but assume that the victory was for the buddhist.

What is remarkable about this story is that it is a good metaphor of life. You never know when it is going to end and you have to keep improving without losing its way. Sometimes you feel the urge to accelerate. For instance, the summer comes and you want to be in good shape so you start exercising as much as you can and begin a very restrictive diet. At first you will see benefits very fast (like the other hikers) but then you will be exhausted and find very difficult to continue the rythm. On the other hand, if you keep an exercise routine which is not so demanding, but you maintain it always, then, in some years you’ll be in perfect shape. More importantly, you will be able to maintain the shape without effort, as the buddhist maintained its pace.

For me this story is a guide on my career, my philosophy. Researching can be really rewarding when it is successful, but in data science you never know when it is going to be a success. Even expert researchers have to experiment a lot to find the architecture that works. Although you may have some intuition, some compass, you ignore where the finish line is. Whenever I want to spend more hours fine-tuning a model, or coding a different architecture, or reading extra articles, I remember the buddhist and stop. More days will come. It is better to be constant than to engage in many things and then getting exhausted. As the buddhist would say: ‘set a pace, and maintain that pace’.