When does a job feel meaningful? Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in others. Though we are often taught to think of ourselves as inherently selfish, the longing to act meaningfully in our work seems just as stubborn a part of our make-up as our appetite for status or money. It is because we are meaning-focused animals rather than simply materialistic ones that we can reasonably contemplate surrendering security for a career helping to bring drinking water to rural Malawi or might quit a job in consumer goods for one in cardiac nursing, aware that when it comes to improving the human condition a well-controlled defibrillator has the edge over even the finest biscuit.

But we should be wary of restricting the idea of meaningful work too tightly, of focusing only on the doctors, the nuns of Kolkata or the Old Masters. There can be less exalted ways to contribute to the furtherance of the collective good....

....An endeavor endowed with meaning may appear meaningful only when it proceeds briskly in the hands of a restricted number of actors and therefore where particular workers can make an imaginative connection between what they have done with their working days and their impact upon others.

I am very passionate about my job and there is no length I cannot go to interpret my roles. That's because whatever we do has a way of touching people out there.

I see the work that I do as a calling – the scientific discoveries that we achieve impact lives and that gives me the strength to wake up the next morning and keep going.

What is important to me In my work is to exceed my limit to set myself challenges and be able to achieve them

Whether you’re a writer, marketer, consultant, or lawyer: Your work is craft, and if you hone your ability and apply it with respect and care, then like the skilled wheelwright you can generate meaning in the daily efforts of your professional life.

What makes work fun is doing meaningful work.

With my career I want to either make something or make an impact. Writers both make something, and make an impact.

For purpose-driven people, this is the conundrum of client-service work: to perform at your best, you must learn how to care about something because you are hired to do so. For some, this is not a problem at all. A great lawyer or consultant can identify so closely with the client, or so strongly desire to be good at the job, or be so well compensated, that her purposes and interests and those of the client become one. But for others, work can only be meaningful if its fundamental purpose is in things that would matter even if no one would pay you to care about them.

One doesn't just happen upon a belief that work must be meaningful, that our endeavours must be towards the well-being and betterment of our fellow human beings. It is something that is taught. And this college, is one of the places I learned that lesson.

I am driven by the desire to leave an impact to contribute to growth and development of the fash-tech industry in Africa.

To do great work, you need to feel that you're making a difference. That you're putting a meaningful dent in the universe. That you are part of something important.

But for others, work can only be meaningful if its fundamental purpose is in things that would matter even if no one would pay you to care about them.

I just want to do something that matters. Or be something that matters. I just want to matter.

The key to meaningful work is in the decision to keep returning to the efforts you find important. Not in getting everything right every time.