When I was an undergraduate, one of my profs recounted a period of his early research. He was working on this big idea of his for years and years, but he could not get it to work. Eventually, he discovered that the hiccup he could not overcome in his own research was equivalent to proving the Riemann hypothesis. He said, "So my advice to you is this: if you come to a place in your research where you are trying to solve the Riemann hypothesis, change research directions."

Funny thing... in my own research, I had this big idea that I was working on for years and years. It was all working fine, but everyone was telling me to fuck off so I decided to change research directions. I had a look at the Riemann hypothesis and solved in about 10 minutes with the ideas that everyone was telling me to fuck off about it. Interesting is that the guy who couldn't solve RH is a highly paid, highly respect expert in his field with tenure and a major USA university and I am essentially the professional opposite of that.