To offer a contrasting opinion, I had to step away from "meaningful" work in order to recover from burnout. It was absorbing my life and I ended up feeling like I was trying to save the world with just myself and my little band of trusted colleagues. It was truly the most exhausting and deeply frustrating "job" I've ever had. Quite frankly, I don't think I'll ever go back. I don't know what could be worth the emotional difficulties that came with all that. Triumph, maybe? But we failed so I never got that. Fighting for something you truly believe in as meaningful can be _hard_. Insanely hard--because sometimes the world is just against you on it and there's nothing you can do about it.
In the end, I get paid far more to work on "junk" (cloud infrastructure) and it's orders of magnitude more easy to walk away from it at the end of the day and sleep peacefully over. Maybe it makes my boss far richer than I'll ever be, but I'm happier, my family's happier, and overall I enjoy my life more. So for me, I'm gonna keep being a "drone" (and happily continue to serve my customers that do seem to need these things for whatever reasons they have) because it's easy and sometimes it just beats suffering ever day--even if it's for something you believe in. Maybe I'll find some meaningful "work" in my free time but at that point is it even really work?
In the end, I get paid far more to work on "junk" (cloud infrastructure) and it's orders of magnitude more easy to walk away from it at the end of the day and sleep peacefully over. Maybe it makes my boss far richer than I'll ever be, but I'm happier, my family's happier, and overall I enjoy my life more. So for me, I'm gonna keep being a "drone" (and happily continue to serve my customers that do seem to need these things for whatever reasons they have) because it's easy and sometimes it just beats suffering ever day--even if it's for something you believe in. Maybe I'll find some meaningful "work" in my free time but at that point is it even really work?