> People literally lived and died based on the things we accomplished in there.
IMO thinking that "having an impact will make me happy" is a fallacy, one of which bored corporate office drones often fell prey to.
As a counterexample, I present a biography of Jozef Czapski - an artist by calling, who became involved in setting up the administration for helping Polish citizens released from Gulags after 1941 (that's when Stalin became part of the anti-Germany alliance, and thus had to release Poles he put into Gulags earlier). It's interesting that his work never had greater impact (he was literally saving lives of thousands of people, who came to him starving, ill, without any money or a place to stay), but it was also the only time when he was seriously depressed. The work just didn't agree with him, he much preferred doing paintings, even if they had zero real-world impact.
IMO thinking that "having an impact will make me happy" is a fallacy, one of which bored corporate office drones often fell prey to.
As a counterexample, I present a biography of Jozef Czapski - an artist by calling, who became involved in setting up the administration for helping Polish citizens released from Gulags after 1941 (that's when Stalin became part of the anti-Germany alliance, and thus had to release Poles he put into Gulags earlier). It's interesting that his work never had greater impact (he was literally saving lives of thousands of people, who came to him starving, ill, without any money or a place to stay), but it was also the only time when he was seriously depressed. The work just didn't agree with him, he much preferred doing paintings, even if they had zero real-world impact.