If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don’t go along to get along do your best and when you have to - and you will - leave, and be something else.

Noonan’s advice frames government service as a temporary, morally bounded vocation rather than an identity to cling to. The speaker urges entering public work with a clear purpose—make a concrete contribution—while resisting the institutional pressure to conform (“go along to get along”). The line anticipates the inevitability of compromise, burnout, or ethical conflict in political environments; hence the counsel to leave when necessary and reinvent oneself outside the system. The significance lies in its emphasis on personal integrity and agency: public service is worthwhile, but not at the cost of one’s principles or independence.