Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash
One of my younger cousins called me recently to talk about her future, but she’s interested in a field I never seriously considered, so at first I couldn’t offer much first-hand information. Then she brought up something that I do experience every day. “I want to have a job where I know I’m making a difference,” she said. That, I can speak to.
I’ve always listened to the news on my way to and from work. Were you aware that a lot of the news is bad? Pretty consistently pretty bad. But so many of the hardest issues covered by reporters are those that we work on at PRA. So even as I grapple with the magnitude and nuances of such an issue, I can remind myself of one supremely fortifying fact: I know great people who are working hard on this, and I’m helping them. When the news is sad or a day is rough, this fact gives me comfort. When work is difficult, I know it’s worth the difficulty. And when a young cousin says she wants to do work that makes a positive impact, I can tell her based on my own experience that there is nothing more rewarding.