All my research job can be summarized to two things, read and search. And I can conclude that it is true not only for me and also for most of concurrent researchers.

And they are very important, even though you feel you finally have got a great idea (actually not that great for human beings), you still need to first read and search via Google scholar or IEEE Xplore, in order to prove what are going to be done is what nobody else has done (This is a very challenging problem). Then, people come to value what you have done by counting numbers or impact factors through a system called peer-to-peer review. Unfortunately, you are not the only one. Millions of research students, MPhils and PhDs supervised by millions of professors over the world are going to graduate or support their posts with numbers and impact factors, how could you dare to say what you did or are going to do are never-ever duplicated, novel, innovative, revolutionary?

One day, my research friends gathered and questioned the purpose of our job. What are we doing for? Our final agreement is that 'we'd better not to ask and just do it.' That's a happy ending.