I think it is easy as a researcher to be anxious as a result of your ego. The more you care, the higher that ego is shouting when it somedays is shouting a bit louder than usual. It happens, and is of course natural, no matter how absurd it might seem logically.
When it comes to "big problems" or general areas of knowledge I care deeply for–quantum gravity, a predictive theory of machine learning, RTC structures of diffeological spaces–there's always that part of you that thinks: "I want to be the one who solves it!", "I want to be the one who uncovered the truth", "I want to be the one people read about!". It's that human ego, and it isn't bad nor good. It's necessary. It's a big part of deeply caring for something.
And sometimes it can be hard to even take a step back and ask that question we all must keep coming back to: What do I really care for?
However, ego is necessary, and in contrast, it is important to recognize those who truly made big contributions that helped us. But there's also something I dislike that comes with this: We tend to hyperfocus on the idea of "geniuses discovering something that completely changed everything we thought we knew."
I want to thank me and I want to thank you. I want to thank those who worked on building the computer I use, the people who worked on the theoretical design of computers, those who developed the software I can use to run experiments, the teachers that taught me, the people who upload category theory lectures on YouTube, the engineers who worked on building YouTube. I want to not only thank the scientists that made the big and small discoveries, but also the gigantic pile of people that made their discoveries possible.
I want to thank us!
That's something I wish we did more often, not only in research. We should thank ourselves, and be proud of humans!
On that note, the part of me that anxiously "want to be the one solving that big problem" diminishes. I am glad that I get to participate in the act of solving problems. Do not pin your identity to "being the one who does that". Pin it to the stuff anyone would need to do to "do that thing". Pin it to the problem solving, the euphoria and the struggle in tackling those types questions, the luck you feel in being here, allowed to explore all of it.
As for me, I don't need to be the one solving a specific hot trendy problem. I need only to be open to the problems that will come.