How we feel about our jobs and the work we do often is a work in progress. Some might even call it a love-hate relationship.

Our success at work is often measured by metrics of productivity and efficiency, with working faster, longer, and harder sometimes presumed to be their own reward. Work also can be entangled with status judgments, in which our answer to, “What do you do?” brings a loaded assessment of our importance by another’s standards. We might focus on whether work boosts our own sense of security, power, or identity, and are frustrated when our expectations are unmet. Or perhaps repetitive, tedious, or unappreciated daily tasks have begun to be perceived as empty of meaning. No wonder we sometimes might feel ambivalent, at best.

When our work is judged in such narrow terms, we are bound to feel discontent. Our work is not only about what we do or how fast we do it. It is also about who we are and choose to be. It is about the deep meaningfulness of our individual stories, values, and self-understanding.

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian physician and Holocaust survivor, speaks to this in his book, “The Doctor and the Soul.” The meaning of our work, he said, is not in the performance of various duties, but in what we bring “to [our] work as a personality, as a human being. … Every occupation allows for this, so long as the work is seen in the proper light. The indispensability and irreplaceability, the singularity and uniqueness issue from the persons, depending on who is doing the work and on the manner in which (we are) doing it, not on the job itself.”

Frankl said we can practice all the arts of our various occupations, but still not master the “art of work.” In remembering that work is a creative act of finding meaning in our life, Frankl suggests that we resist false forms of idealizing or valuing it. We re-humanize work with our own singular, unique standpoints.

Discovering the meaning of our work demands existential creativity and courage. This is true whether we choose our work tasks or they are assigned to us, whether the labors are visible or invisible, or whether the occupation is fraught with self-importance or humble in form and service.

The meaningfulness we attach to our work is not just some future-focused horizon, as in a hope that someday our work will matter or have an ultimate impact. Frankl tells us there is always “meaning in the moment.” The impact—the joy—is for now. This is at the heart of a values-rich mindfulness. We always have the power to choose our attitude toward the work of today, naming why and how it matters to us.

Perhaps we discover that the work before us is rich with our love of learning, sparkling curiosity, or prudent decisions. Its meaning in the moment might be gracefully shaped by our grit, honesty, or vitality. Perhaps today’s labors have to do with the beauty and excellence we find in our tasks or the humor and gratitude we bring to their practice. In moments when we are conscious of our limits and fallibility, it may be the attitude of forgiveness and kindness toward ourselves and others that elevates our tasks into the art of work.

The meanings we discover and seize in our work are not accidental values. They are attitudes that can represent our creative standpoints and unique lives—our daily resistance against forces that try to dehumanize the meaning of our work.

And if the value of work can be found less in what we are doing and more in who we are when we are doing it, then joy is within reach.