Your city was built by people who never saw it finished. Some work is meant to be handed off mid-sentence.

Some work is longer than a person and is meant to be. Whoever laid out the streets knew they would never see the city full, and anybody planting a slow tree is working for someone they will not meet. Contributing to something unfinished is the normal condition rather than proof you failed to finish. Expecting to see the end of everything you touch is what makes patient work feel pointless.

Put effort into one thing this year whose payoff lands after you are gone from it. A younger teammate, a club that should outlast your year in it, notes written down for whoever comes next.