About four years ago I was reading a book in a small train station in the town of Wakayama waiting for my train. A janitor was removing a large bag of garbage when he spotted a small black dot near the trash can. He finished tying up the garbage bag, removed a flat-bladed knife from his belt and went to work on the spot. It was gum. Hardened, flattened gum. Yuk.

For about five minutes, the entire world ceased to exist for the janitor as he pried the gum off the concrete platform. When he was finished he took a rag and wiped the spot he was just working on. He tossed the gum pieces into the trash can, lifted up the bag and made his way toward the stairway with a determined stride. And thus, I learned one of the more important lessons in life that I learned in Japan.

In large department stores in Japan, there is a person near the elevator whose sole job is to press the elevator button and summon the elevator for you. As you approach they gently call out a polite greeting, smile, and bow right after they press the elevator button. As you get inside, they bow again, smile and wish you well on your journey of shopping. At a McDonalds drive-thru, the order is taken, paid for then the car turns into the parking lot and waits. Within two minutes an employee runs out the door smiling, bowing and calling out greetings as she hands your food up to you in your vehicle before bowing again and dashing back inside. After their respective tasks, you can't help feel their satisfaction in a job well done.

In America, there are many "low jobs". Jobs that most people look down on the people working in them and those who work in them often look as if they would be anyplace other than where they are. There is no respect given these people and they have no pride in what they do. A stark contrast in Japan where every job is recognized, at a certain level, to be an integral part of the big picture.

The "Elevator Ladies", for example, take an enormous amount of pride in their job. Their job, is not really to press the elevator button, but to make the customers feel welcome in their store. The janitor's job is not so much to make sure the place doesn't get overrun with garbage, but to make the station platform a more harmonious place to wait for your train.

Pride and respect usually go hand in hand. If you have more pride in what you do, no matter what your position, usually you are afforded more respect. And if you are given more respect, you invariably have more pride in what you do. I often wonder what my own city, or even the country, would be like if people had just a bit more pride in what they did. If they didn't see a job only as a way to make their credit card payment or put bread on the table, but also as something that is important in grand scheme of things.

Think about how you would feel about your own job if, once a day, you reflected on the things you affected by just doing your job. Maybe if you are a gas station attendant, you helped people get to work on time. If you are a waiter in a restaurant, you helped people enjoy their meal and put a smile on their faces. If you sell type-A commercial batteries, maybe you helped your customers power hundreds of other devices that will, in turn, be used to aid thousands of other people all over the city to do just about everything.

Many people think that they have to do something fantastic, something grand, as a career to be proud. Ambition is good. Ambition keeps the human race going. But what is more important, at the individual scale, is to find your niche, something you are good at, and try and excel at it.

Have some pride in what you do. Not only will make others' lives more tolerable, you might end up actually enjoying yours.