Your work gains meaning when it improves someone else’s ability to work.

One kind of meaning comes from the work itself and another comes from what it enables in others. The second tends to last longer and reach further, because ability passed to someone else keeps producing without you. It also survives the days when your own output feels small.

When your work feels thin, look at it from the other side. Ask who is better equipped because of something you did. That is real, and it counts even on the days nothing else does.