Years ago, a dear friend of my mom’s was struck with ovarian cancer. As is often the case in situations like these, her family and closest friends rallied to her support with great compassion. People brought meals, sent handwritten notes of encouragement, and checked in frequently with the family. Many prayed. My mom, along with a group of other parents from our church, kept her in their thoughts and prayers constantly. For my mom’s friend, this group of devoted parents and friends became a source of strength and hope.
As the months passed, her condition worsened. Before long, doctors told her the outlook was becoming bleaker, and my mom’s friend began to come closer to the awful reality. She did not have much time left.
One day, near the end, she approached my mom with a gift.
It was a quilt, a stunning mixture of blue and white fabrics and striking patterns, composed of three thousand distinct patches, clearly handcrafted and painstakingly sewn. Throughout her sickness, she told my mom, whenever she began to despair, she would simply place herself in her chair and get to work. Pull, cut, stitch, sew. With each patch, a new prayer. In those minutes and hours and days and months, my mom’s friend slowly and deliberately crafted into the fibers of the quilt a message she wanted to leave behind to my mom and the other parents who had been there for her in her time of greatest need: thank you. It was her life’s final great work, and she had dedicated it to a friend. This one is for you.
Soon after, she passed away.
The quilt is quite possibly the most beautiful in the world. My mom kept it on her bed as a reminder of a beloved friend departed much too soon. She always maintained that, with the exception of her husband and children, it was the greatest treasure she had ever received.
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What is the most important force behind truly great work?
If we look to the most exceptional feats of human skill and innovation and artistry, there are many things that made them possible—years of practice, talent, education, time, money. But I would argue the single greatest common thread tying together the world’s greatest companies, speeches, books, songs, and inventions is this: Many were devoted, in some way or another, to someone else.
Abraham Lincoln dedicated the Gettysburg Address to the 51,000 soldiers who had died on the Pennsylvania battlefield months before.
Eric Clapton wrote the award-winning song “Tears in Heaven” for Conor, the four-year-old son he lost in a 1991 accident.
Kelly Xinyi Zhang, a 17-year-old from California, pioneered a technique to better visualize cancer cells after a childhood friend of hers lost a leg to bone cancer.
Stanford researcher Ricardo Dolmetsch left academia after his son was diagnosed with autism and is now working to develop cures for brain diseases at Novartis.
And my mom’s friend created one of the most beautiful pieces of art she had ever made as a thank-you to a friend.
There are countless such examples. Something about having our work connected to something larger than ourselves tends to energize and inspire us beyond what we would have experienced otherwise. A desire for personal success can only take us so far. It’s when that effort is done in service of something more—a person, a country, a belief—that our work can be transformed into something extraordinary.
The tendency, though, is to think that this applies only to the most grandiose accomplishments, like winning a Nobel Prize or writing a bestseller. But that’s a mistake. Even the simplest daily task can be elevated to something meaningful when it’s done for the sake of something bigger.
Editing an e-mail for your boss? Dedicate it to the aunt who inspired your love for reading.
Conducting interviews for a new position? Dedicate it to the first hiring manager who took a chance on you.
Preparing an internal presentation? Dedicate it to the philosophy teacher who pushed you to think deeper.
This sort of mindset won’t magically make your work free of any flaws, and it is no substitute for other key ingredients like practice and education. But when you dedicate your work, you start to see it less as a means to a paycheck and more as an opportunity to give of yourself. You start to become more thankful. And you start to recognize that engaging in hard effort on someone else’s behalf carries with it a sense of dignity that lifts the very quality of your own work. Ironically, it’s the tasks done most genuinely for the sake of other people that end up reflecting best on the ones doing them.
So, the next time you are wrestling with how to communicate or what to write or how to get through a difficult assignment, dedicate your efforts to someone else. You don’t have to tell them or broadcast it, but think of them. Think of your toil as a gift. In the process, you may find yourself being stretched to create something greater than you’d ever imagined.
Ricky McRoskey 
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