I'm a grad student and I regularly run across this quote of Feynman. What strikes me about the quote is that unlike Feynman, I can't always just drop whatever project I'm currently working on and start doing "cool new stuff". I have responsibilities and commitments to my adviser and my colleagues. Even if I'm at a point in my research where starting something new is possible, sources of funding, adviser's expertise and interests etc. still constrain what I can possibly work on.
I guess you can do whatever catches your fancy if you're Richard Feynman. For the rest of us mortals, the challenge is in finding interesting stuff to do within the constraints of the environment we're working in.
The lesson that I take from the quote is that you've got keep yourself interested in whatever you're doing. If getting up in the morning and turning up to the lab seems like a chore, then something needs to change until it isn't.
I guess you can do whatever catches your fancy if you're Richard Feynman. For the rest of us mortals, the challenge is in finding interesting stuff to do within the constraints of the environment we're working in.
The lesson that I take from the quote is that you've got keep yourself interested in whatever you're doing. If getting up in the morning and turning up to the lab seems like a chore, then something needs to change until it isn't.