The title of this post may not be words you are used to seeing together. Sure, you might think that mathematics is powerful, but does anyone actually do mathematics just because they enjoy it? If you ask someone other than a mathematician, you might expect the answer to be “no”.
It’s tempting to imagine that if you see something, everyone else does too. After all, in our interconnected world, we tend to be reminded every day just how good other people are. This makes it easy to imagine that any supposed “insight” you may have has already been thought of before. Without the right mindset, this can create a situation in which you do almost no creative work, since you’re worried about wasting time on something that has already been done.