Meaningful Work

“When does a job feel meaningful? When we can, at the end of the day, feel as if our work has in some way, however modestly, helped either to reduce the misery or to increase the contentment of others. We like to serve, and we like even more to experience the impact of our efforts on the lives of our fellow humans. Yet when labour is subdivided into ever smaller parts, when whole careers are devoted to turning out objects which will affect another’s well-being for only a second or not at all, then meaning suffers. Not that the stock markets would care; they would reply that meaning should be something reserved for the weekend.”

– Alain de Botton