I've been tapering off AI lately. I think I've realized that conquering the struggle is the fun part, and accomplishments just don't hit the same if AI is smoothing over every friction and cordoning off all the pitfalls and rabbit-holes.
Yet I also hate when I get away from solving problems and feel like I'm wasting my life with nothing to show for it.
You're far from the only one to feel this way, but I want to point out that this attitude is a choice, not an intrinsic feature of the problem. An equally valid perspective is that learning turns difficult problems into easy ones.
One advantage of the latter perspective is that it makes solving a problem a moment to enjoy and celebrate, whereas your perspective turns it (almost definitionally) into a moment of self-recrimination. "Hooray, I understand it!" vs "Why didn't I understand it sooner? (I'm so stupid!...)"
I actually suspect that there is natural selection for people with the more upbeat perspective to succeed at becoming mathematicians.