It depends on how you look at it.
To me, the essential point is not so much about whether you gain recognition for anything. The essential point is about whether you find your own life engaging, interesting, fulfilling, meaningful or exciting.
The trap that many people fall into is that they believe that their circumstances have trapped them, such that their lives therefore cannot be engaging, interesting, fulfilling, meaningful or exciting.
For example, they believe that due to the limitations of their age, qualifications, wealth, job, health etc etc, they are inherently handicapped in their ability to lead an engaging, interesting, fulfilling, meaningful or exciting.
To me, the point of the Mendel example is that even in circumstances that appear extremely mundane or limiting, there is usually plenty of scope for an engaging, interesting, fulfilling, meaningful or exciting life. Mendel may not have received recognition in his own lifetime, but I believed that he must have found his beans and flowers very interesting (otherwise he would not have done so much original, groundbreaking work on them).
I guess the starting point may be about taking a deep interest in the things, events and circumstances in your immediate experience. Wherever you are, start from there. Even beans can be a universe onto themselves; how many available universes have you not explored yet?
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