This really resonates with me. On the one hand, you have the desire for greatness and importance, and on the other, the sobering realization that unless you do something completely absurd - inventing free energy, for instance, or getting us into contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence - your work can only have an impact on a limited number of people, and will almost certainly be unknown to the vast majority of humans.<p>I look to the great minds of history, people like Aristotle, Newton, and Nietzsche, as role models and examples of who I want to be like, but then I remember that even for them, the majority of people on earth don't know their names. To say nothing of actually being acquainted with their work.<p>Perhaps a good compromise is that, while you might not be able to impact everyone alive, present and future, you might be able to impact all people who share some property X. Most people don't know who Gauss is, but everyone who is a part of the mathematical community and studies mathematics to a certain level knows who Gauss is. In that way, some kind of enduring immortality and greatness can still be achieved.