[astrocat]

It seems like "you can always find meaning in anything you do" turns the sentiment back into being about YOU, which is what OP seemed to be lamenting in the first place.

As you expressed, you see the task as "find meaning in yourself," a concept that can maybe be expressed as "meaning comes from within." This sounds nice! I think what OP was getting at is that this perspective has two problems: 1. It requires you to produce your own sense of "meaning" (whatever that means) that is self-satisfying, AND that works well in the society/community in which you exist; and 2. it is fundamentally self-centered. A hypothesis could be that this perspective seems to most frequently result in a failure to find "meaning" (probably better called "contentment") in anything.

As OP said, faith/religion traditions tend to hand you a set of pre-defined "here's what's meaningful" morals, and these also tend to be skewed towards group value instead of just self-satisfaction. When handed this outlook on meaning/morals, it seems possible there might be benefits - not having to come up with a self-fulfilling sense of meaning that also meshes with broader society, as well as a focus on being useful to the community instead of just yourself.

I personally find the whole "be yourself" / "do what you love" dogma-du-jour to be terrible, and prone to actually resulting in depression and shame. It is at the same time selfish, and self-sabotaging.