“Doing meaningful work makes us happier”

Date

Nov 19, 2025

Author

Vi

“Doing meaningful work makes us happier”

… Until we cannot see the impacts.

“Meaningful work makes us happier.” That idea guided me from the moment I imagined RainbowVI. I pictured an organization that was well-funded, fully staffed, and filled with people excited to serve the community every day. But meaningful work feels very different when I am behind the screen alone, carrying the weight of each decision, and opening email after email with another funding rejection. In those moments, the meaning becomes blurry and hope feels thin.

Over time, I’ve also grown more critical of this idea. Meaningful work… but meaningful to whom? To the people we serve? To donors? To partners? Or to me, the one trying to hold everything together? The pursuit of “meaningful work” can sometimes feel like a pressure, an expectation that every moment must feel profound. And when it doesn’t, it can create guilt instead of joy.

What helped me reconnect with purpose was noticing impact in small, quiet ways. The first volunteer group who showed up with curiosity. The first learning participants whose eyes lit up when they felt understood. These early moments weren’t large milestones, yet they reminded me why RainbowVI matters. They helped me realize that meaning is not a fixed definition. It shifts depending on who is experiencing it and what they need.

RainbowVI has evolved into one that creates hope, playfulness, and youthful energy for everyone involved, including me. This shift feels more honest. It acknowledges that meaningful work is not a straight path. It grows slowly, person by person, feeling by feeling, and often in ways we didn’t predict.

Running a nonprofit still demands revenue, sustainability, and constant responsibility. Those realities never disappear. But I am learning that my happiness cannot depend solely on grant decisions or external validation. I need to feed my hope with people, stories, and the tiny sparks of change that appear long before anything scales.

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