Inject Meaning Into Your Work

What you do is far less important than how you do it. There are non-profits and churches and hospitals and nursing homes that treat people terribly. Then there are metal bands and bars and hedge funds that treat people with respect. 

If you wanted to, you could make strong a case that a non-profit contributes more positively to society than a bar. But if the bar has an education fund and actively promotes responsible drinking, while the non-profit embezzles money and creates a toxic environment for minorities, you could more easily make the opposite case. There’s a strong temptation for us to do ”meaningful work,” I think mostly for the social benefits we receive. But simple work done in a meaningful way is far more impactful than “meaningful work” done with selfish motivation. 

In a few dozen years, we’ll be getting pretty old. It’s unlikely people will remember our work they way we want them to. But it’s inevitable that people will remember how we treated them. 

I think the meaning of life is to affect positive change for the things we believe in within our communities. We overestimate the impact our success will have, and we underestimate the impact of our daily actions, human to human. Every simple, selfless act of service has positive ripple effects on our communities in ways we could never begin to imagine. 

How will you inject meaning into your work this week?