#careers

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. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#collective-good #connections #impact #jobs #meaning

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records. ↗

— Richard Branson

#assets #bands #brand #careers #combination

No matter how famous and established they were or however blessed they were with great songs or long careers, if they lived alone, they lived alone. That's not the way I wanted to live prior to the tour or after. ↗

— Edie Brickell

#alone #blessed #careers #established #famous

I did a film in which Andy Garcia and Michael Keaton both played the leads, 'Desperate Measures,' and interestingly enough it was their biggest payday. The film didn't do well, and it kind of marked their careers. They've done less since. It all changed. ↗

— Brian Cox

#biggest #both #careers #changed #desperate

There are people who appear in the magazines and I don't know who they are. I've never seen anything they've done and their careers are over already. They're famous for maybe 10 minutes. Real careers, I think, take a long time to unfold. ↗

— Matt Damon

#anything #appear #careers #done #famous

All ballplayers want to wind up their careers with the Cubs, Giants or Yankees. They just can't help it. ↗

— Dizzy Dean

#careers #cubs #giants #help #just

I look at the careers of people I'm standing on the shoulders of. People like Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., and Sarah Vaughan. These are icons I wanted to emulate, and I feel like they've been holding me up for quite a long time. ↗

— Dionne Warwick

#careers #davis #ella #ella fitzgerald #emulate

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. ↗

— Igor Stravinsky

#classic #conductor #conductors #eliminates #him

Many of our nation's great leaders began their careers at a service academy. I encourage anyone interested in a rewarding college experience or military career to apply as soon as possible. ↗

— Chris Cannon

#anyone #apply #began #career #careers

In my generation, except for a few people who'd gone into banking or nursing or something like that, middle-class women didn't have careers. You were to marry and have children and be a nice mother. You didn't go out and do anything. I found that I got restless. ↗

— Julia Child

#banking #careers #children #except #few