I can understand your point of view, but I think there are two assumptions there that many would not agree with. The first assumption is that it is better to a

I can understand your point of view, but I think there are two assumptions there that many would not agree with. The first assumption is that it is better to advance engineering, or somehow 'leave a mark' (fame?), or 'make the world a better place', than to simply live a happy life, all else being equal. While personally I do enjoy it to see others enjoying or being grateful for the fruits of my labor, I don't actually consider this a good incentive. I'm a huge fan of the 'wu-wei' concept in taoism though. And while I'm still actively figuring out how to apply all this to my life, I generally find that some (and possibly most) of the most intensely happy moments in my life were rather... insular and independent of (rational) 'context'. The second assumption is that the kinds of things we engineers do are a net benefit to the world. I've begun to doubt that, despite my love for all things engineering. If I were to do anything that has a large enough impact to 'matter', there's always a chance that this might end up having unintended consequences that also matter. I can think of many pursuits that seem more unambiguously 'good'. All that said, it's possible that you are either 'wired' to want to make the world a better place, or that your life took a path where this is who you've becoming. By my own logic, I can't really disagree with you wanting to pursue that! Just offering a different point of view.