My head of department had been encouraging us to explore LLMs for the longest time, and I finally got an exciting opportunity to work with one. Until now, I hadn’t had the chance to use one, as my work primarily revolved around building pipelines that trigger actions based on keywords.

This time, I needed to build a medication database using data from the OpenFDA API, which is highly unstructured. Writing regular expressions for every possible variation was impractical - enter LLMs.

I got so excited about the project that I pushed myself too hard. I worked relentlessly until I fell sick - really sick. What started as a couple of days on medical leave turned into six full days of rest, including a weekend where I just couldn’t recover properly. To make matters worse, I developed rashes (post-viral exanthem) on top of an ongoing eczema flare-up.

This forced me to slow down and reflect. Passion and excitement are great, but not at the expense of my health. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. What’s the point of learning something new if I fall sick and miss future opportunities?

Falling sick also derailed my other plans - I had to skip the gym, miss out on social events, and watch the world move on without me. And that sucked.

So, lesson learned: work hard, but pace yourself. After all, what’s the point of achieving something if it comes at the cost of your well-being?