Everything falls apart. Why try?

A well-worn parable tells of the Buddha being asked by his disciples how to live positively in a world characterized by impermanence. He tells them that every day he drinks from his favorite cup, and that this cup brings him pleasure in its perfection. He knows that someday there will be an accident and the cup will be broken, yet this knowledge does not dampen his present pleasure. Instead of viewing the nature of the cup as eternally unbroken, such that the breaking is an abnormality, he accepts that the cup is both broken (for most of time) and unbroken (for a brief time). This acceptance allows him to enjoy the current moments with the unbroken cup even more, in recognition that they are rare.

Permanence is irrelevant.

When we work at something, the energy we invest can inspire someone and interact with their energy and creativity, which can in turn propagate into the future through a long chain of others' subsequent creativity, bearing a tiny imprint of our creative DNA far into the future – long after we and our direct works are gone – contributing to life-art we cannot imagine.