Meaningful work is something that most people want to have. Many people try to find and do meaningful work because they feel that do meaningful things is important. More recently, researchers have shown meaningfulness to be more important to people than any other aspect of work, including pay and rewards, opportunities for promotion, or working conditions. (Bailey & Madden, 2016). Meaningful work can motivate the people as well as improve their performance, commitment, and satisfaction.
However everyone has his or her own definition of meaningful work. For some people, meaningful work means earning a lot of money from their works, while others may think it means accomplishing some achievements in their works. There is nothing wrong with any opinion because meaningful work can be interpreted by various points of view.
In my opinion, meaningful work does not have to be always interpreted in the way above. Meaningful work can be achieved if we love and enjoy the work that we do. Certainly, it will differ from one person to the other because each person likes different things. For example, if we love to dance, the activity of practicing dance for a performance will be a meaningful work. On the other side, people who dislike dancing or do not find something interesting and useful in dancing will say that dancing is a meaningless work and do not have any benefit. They probably say that it is a time-wasting activity. We cannot blame anyone’s opinion. However, I also agree with Maria (1960) who said that work should not be too pleasurable and let the pleasure becomes the purpose of the work. A work will be meaningful if we can also get our own satisfaction by doing that work, no matter the sources of the satisfaction, internal or external reward. If we can feel satisfied with our work, it means we have done a meaningful work. For example, if we are satisfied with our writings, then our job in writing is meaningful. The feeling of satisfied can also come from external reward, such as get a lot of money from our work. External reward do not always be in physical form, i.e. products or money. It can be in the form of appreciation, praise, recognition, and other similar things. However, it does not necessary to always come from outside or external sources. It can also come from ourselves when we see the outcome of our work that meets or exceeds our expectation. Actually, it is better if can get the satisfaction from self-reward or internal reward because it will last longer. Moreover, it shows how we actually love our job or work. That is why I highly agree with the statement of Frederick Herzberg (1960, in Bailey & Madden, 2016), saying that meaningfulness is largely something that individuals find for themselves in their work. In addition, a meaningful work should be able to improve ourselves as well as enhance our knowledge and skills. A meaningful work should be able to give a positive impact for ourselves to be better. For example, researching has a meaning if this job develop ourselves in knowledge, skills, and behaviors. When we do a research about prosocial behavior toward strangers, we can get the insight not only of the findings, but also about the experimental and data collection method. We can get the knowledge of the reason and consideration people want or do not want to help the strangers, as well as the behavior of people when they assist the strangers. This reesearch work can also improve our research, interpersonal, observation, interview, sosial, analytical thinking, reasoning, analysis, and other skills. A job can also be defined as a meaningful work when it can help other people or make other people happy. …show more content…
As usual, some people can simply explain meaningless work as work which does not make money or accomplish a conventional purpose (Maria, 1960). We have no right to fault their point of view and opinion. In my opinion, if we get a lot of money from our work, but we do not like our job, it will be a meaningless work. A work will be meaningful if only we like and enjoy it. If we do not, we will not be happy and life only happens once. If we do not live happily in our life, our life will be meaningless, too. There is no meaning to have a lot of money without
However everyone has his or her own definition of meaningful work. For some people, meaningful work means earning a lot of money from their works, while others may think it means accomplishing some achievements in their works. There is nothing wrong with any opinion because meaningful work can be interpreted by various points of view.
In my opinion, meaningful work does not have to be always interpreted in the way above. Meaningful work can be achieved if we love and enjoy the work that we do. Certainly, it will differ from one person to the other because each person likes different things. For example, if we love to dance, the activity of practicing dance for a performance will be a meaningful work. On the other side, people who dislike dancing or do not find something interesting and useful in dancing will say that dancing is a meaningless work and do not have any benefit. They probably say that it is a time-wasting activity. We cannot blame anyone’s opinion. However, I also agree with Maria (1960) who said that work should not be too pleasurable and let the pleasure becomes the purpose of the work. A work will be meaningful if we can also get our own satisfaction by doing that work, no matter the sources of the satisfaction, internal or external reward. If we can feel satisfied with our work, it means we have done a meaningful work. For example, if we are satisfied with our writings, then our job in writing is meaningful. The feeling of satisfied can also come from external reward, such as get a lot of money from our work. External reward do not always be in physical form, i.e. products or money. It can be in the form of appreciation, praise, recognition, and other similar things. However, it does not necessary to always come from outside or external sources. It can also come from ourselves when we see the outcome of our work that meets or exceeds our expectation. Actually, it is better if can get the satisfaction from self-reward or internal reward because it will last longer. Moreover, it shows how we actually love our job or work. That is why I highly agree with the statement of Frederick Herzberg (1960, in Bailey & Madden, 2016), saying that meaningfulness is largely something that individuals find for themselves in their work. In addition, a meaningful work should be able to improve ourselves as well as enhance our knowledge and skills. A meaningful work should be able to give a positive impact for ourselves to be better. For example, researching has a meaning if this job develop ourselves in knowledge, skills, and behaviors. When we do a research about prosocial behavior toward strangers, we can get the insight not only of the findings, but also about the experimental and data collection method. We can get the knowledge of the reason and consideration people want or do not want to help the strangers, as well as the behavior of people when they assist the strangers. This reesearch work can also improve our research, interpersonal, observation, interview, sosial, analytical thinking, reasoning, analysis, and other skills. A job can also be defined as a meaningful work when it can help other people or make other people happy. …show more content…
As usual, some people can simply explain meaningless work as work which does not make money or accomplish a conventional purpose (Maria, 1960). We have no right to fault their point of view and opinion. In my opinion, if we get a lot of money from our work, but we do not like our job, it will be a meaningless work. A work will be meaningful if only we like and enjoy it. If we do not, we will not be happy and life only happens once. If we do not live happily in our life, our life will be meaningless, too. There is no meaning to have a lot of money without