4 years to get what?

My fellow labmates have started writing their thesis. This act in itself makes me extremely jealous, even though I know they have been here longer and have more data (well some have more others I am not quite sure how they are graduating or what exactly they are going to defend ...another blog another day). Hearing about the few pages they have typed I get motivated to start analyzing my data. I may have over a year left, but when they tell me I can go I want o be ready. I have done one particular assay over and over for the past four years I have been here, not all successfully, but needless to say repeated many many times. I decided I could pick a hand ful and analyze them and do some statistics on them. I included tests I know didn't work , but I thought ..it should all balance out in the end. NOPE. I have spent four years of my life doing an assay just to get overlapping error bars. How sad. I knew I wasn't saving the world and finding cures for cancer, but all this hard work for overlapping error bars. hmph. Just will please someone bring some meaning to me. I would like a menu where I can order meaning on a silver platter. WHY am I still here? I guess it is for hopes that one day I can do an assay and get error bars with some space in between them! Sad life I live .