Politicians remind us that work gives people dignity, and it does. People should have opportunities for gainful employment. A lack of work is for most demoralizing and deprives them the chance to provide for themselves and their families.

But here’s something you rarely hear discussed: people give work dignity.

You and I determine the excellence and impact of the work we do, regardless of the jobs we hold.

B.C. Forbes said, “There is more credit and satisfaction in being a first-rate truck driver than a tenth-rate executive.”

Martin Luther King said it well, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

As an employee you might feel you have a redundant job that is dead end. Continue to look for better work, but in the meantime, why not accept the challenge of doing your job as well as you can and perhaps even recreating it to be more fulfilling?

We all enjoy the dignity that meaningful employment provides, but how you do your work gives dignity to the job.