#1… Clergy.
This comes from Business Insider.
The 13 most meaningful jobs in America
If your goal in life is to make the world a better place, you should probably pursue a job in education or healthcare.
Twelve of the top 13 most meaningful jobs in America, according to PayScale, fell into one of those two categories.
To compile its latest list, PayScale asked over 2 million professionals whether their work is meaningful, and ranked almost 500 professions based on the percentage of people in each of those jobs who answered “yes.”
“Many people hope to find work that they find meaningful, but the secret is that you can find purpose in a variety of professions,” says Lydia Frank, senior editorial director at PayScale. “And, you don’t always have to sacrifice a good paycheck in order to have a positive impact on the world.”
To find out where your career fell, check out PayScale’s new interactive “meaning” tool.
[…]
Read the rest there.
Also on the list:
4. Directors of religious activities and education
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Most meaningful?? Meaningful to whom? If you want to make the world a better place, become a garbage man. They have, single-handedly, transformed the modern world. English teachers have some of the worst moral track records, around, as far as disseminating faulty philosophy to their students and elementary and secondary administrators are hamstringing really talented teachers by fear of lawsuits.
Meaningful to whom?
Priesthood (or clergy) is on the list, but the Catholic priesthood is not like other clergy in that it has a different ontological status and Catholic priests really forgive sins, whereas other clergy do not.
This is a badly formed questionnaire with suspect epistemology.
The Chicken
Actually, it looks to me as if Director of Religious Ed/Activities is tied for 2nd.
The case could be made that the top 2 professions are religious in nature!
But, who could write an article in this day that made that claim?
I read an article once that railed against modern conveniences and asked rhetorically whether it was more important for society to spend money on social workers or deodorant manufacturers. Of course the answer was supposed to be obvious: social workers. I think the deodorant makers. I like the garbage collector idea also.
Meaningful? Bah! If the bills are paid, you have a roof over your heads and your kids don’t have to rely on the $5 grab bag of t shirts from Goodwill for their school clothes you have a meaningful job.
Ok Kimberley, I’ll tell my husband, who is a theology professor at a faithful Catholic university (on Newman’s 21 list) that his job is not meaningful because we shop at goodwill. I guess it wasn’t worth it for him to teach the nuns and seminarians he did. Or better yet, to give those going into a secular job at least a grounding in the faith because our kids only wear hand me downs and we have to rely on him teaching summer school and doing some teaching fornthe diocese just to get by. Although I would never call you a stupid person, that was a stupid and extremely insensitive comment.
Physiotherapy is important, chiropractic is quackery. They might as well have included snake oil salesman. ksommer76: you should probably read Kimberley’s comment again. Yes, it was possibly insensitive, but do you send your children to school in $1 t-shirts? Her point is that providing for one’s family and keeping them out of harsh poverty should be reward enough for most people. I’m sorry that your husband for all the importance of his work is not better paid. That does not look good for the institution involved. I would love to teach as a faithful Catholic institution instead of the large secular one that employs me, but Catholic schools should not presume that their faculty having faith means they can pay them less.
I get the feeling that this may in fact be a list of jobs where the reward is feeling good about your job rather than getting paid well. Maybe that is what “meaningful” means here.
Msc: I did read her comment, and it is insensitive to give the impression that unless you can provide for your family “the right way” your job is not meaningful. Is shopping at Goodwill only for the extremely poor, no. But to imply that shopping there is a less than good way to live your life is rude. And for the record, I have never seen a bag of t-shirts for a dollar there. I probably sound a little petulant about this, but I really get tired of trying very hard to live a life devoted to God and the teachings of his church, and then get snide remarks made by not just secular people, but supposedly religious people as well. In fact some of those comments hurt worse because you look to your fellow Catholics for support and understanding.
I agree that it is really a disgrace that Catholic institutions, including the churches themselves pay so little, especially considering they support a living wage. It is also true that at his university (and they are not alone supposedly) they pay those in theology and philosophy less than other proffessors, because in secular schools, professors of business and science etc. get more money. What message does that send?
Ksoomer, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant at all. I’ve actually been poor and any job that allows a person to to live in such a way that your kids are not lying awake at night worrying about money is meaningful. Take it or leave it.
In spite of the faults inherent in such studies and their questions, I find it quite accurate that Catholic priests report greater joy in their vocation than other vocations that are interviewed. They are privileged to handle the divine in the care and salvation of souls.
And, in my opinion, this is the case in spite of the perception by many that there is a morale problem with Catholic priests.