Where does this idea of 'making the world a better place' as a maxim for a 'meaningful life' rather than as a guide to ethics come from? If from religion then it is a distortion of the idea of righteousness, and if from humanism then it is one more guise of original progressivism. In any case it accords ultimate reality to the world. For you this appears to be a heresy, the world being rather a particular ordering of experience wherein the reality principle can fully awaken and transform consciousness.