Effort always pays. It just pays on a schedule you didn’t get to pick.

Work tends to return something, though rarely in the currency or the month you expected. The payment often arrives sideways, as an opportunity that came from a person you met while doing the unrelated thing, or as a capability you only notice years later. What you cannot do is set the date.

Since the timing is not yours, stop measuring your effort against a schedule you invented. Ask instead whether the work is worth doing if the return is late or takes a different shape. If yes, keep going. If no, that is honest information and worth acting on now.