Smart Emmanuel: In Pursuit of Meaningful Work 

The world is very money conscious but within many of us is a deep desire to do meaningful work that makes the world a happier place, and adds colour to the lives of other people. It’s really hard to combine meaningful work and commercially viable work. Many people can’t see how their day-to-day work positively impacts the world and even if they do, that’s not the kind of impact they want to make in the world. Volunteering is one way people give their time in areas they feel passionate about but, still, people spend most of their time at work and it can be daunting if this work is not meaningful enough.  

One way to find meaning in your everyday work is to imagine the workplace or the world without people like you in it. Sometimes, we tend to forget the importance of what we do and the impact it makes. Imagine the president without his special advisers. One would think all that would be affected is the quality of his decision and the hours he will spend figuring out every piece of information. But beyond the president being miserable without his advisers, the life of every citizen would be significantly impacted by the wrong choices he will make because he is overwhelmed, under-informed or confused. I can bet presidential advisers probably don’t see themselves as that important. You may not be a presidential adviser but you’re very important.

Fuel attendants are largely poorly paid and are probably one of the most ignored workers in the informal sector. But without them, petrol stations may cease to exist. If they all stopped working now without technological replacement, the entire country may shut down. There may be no fuel to get the fire truck to the burning building in time. There may be no fuel to get millions of people to work, or an ambulance to the hospital early enough. In turn, people will be stuck, those with health emergencies will suffer. Yet, I can bet that they have never seen their work as important.

According to the US Federal Aviation Administration, FAA’s Air Traffic Organization (ATO) provides service to more than 45,000 flights and 2.9 million airline passengers across more than 29 million square miles of airspace. The software engineers can surely see how important they are because if the software powering FAA’s complex work goes down, millions of passengers will be stranded and billions of unearned income will be lost. However, the guy that sells the engineer his meal is also key to this great achievement. The lady that handles his spa session and keeps him in the right mental and physical state is also important. The people that make the engineer’s clothes are also key to ensuring he succeeds. There are millions of people that come together to ensure that software engineers succeed. Just imagine the world without these people and you will see how things will break down in hours. 

You may not get all the credit you deserve but the world cannot be at its best without your everyday work. You may not get all the appreciation you deserve, but from me to you, you’re very important and I may probably not function well if you aren’t doing the work you do. We are all important part of the engine that keeps the earth running. I believe every worker adds colour to the humans of our world and makes the world a happier place. Isn’t that the true reason for living – to know that your everyday work adds colour to the world and makes the world a happier place?

Thank you for being amazing. 

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Feature image by Diva Plavalaguna for Pexels