Thanks for sharing your write-up. I read this book a few years ago, and I remember it as partially inspirational, and partially cautionary. There are aspects of the stories that I really do find inspiring, and had the earlier years of my life happened differently I could see myself embracing some aspect of these stories. And of course, there are scenarios in these stories where these altruistic desires went to such extremes that I found them unhealthy or unhelpful.
It may seem obvious that there are downsides to being extremely altruistic, but I found it helpful to have some concrete examples of real things that people have done. I view it kind of like the difference between someone saying “don’t go to that place” and “don’t go to that place, because X, Y, Z things are likely to occur there.”
Thanks for sharing your write-up. I read this book a few years ago, and I remember it as partially inspirational, and partially cautionary. There are aspects of the stories that I really do find inspiring, and had the earlier years of my life happened differently I could see myself embracing some aspect of these stories. And of course, there are scenarios in these stories where these altruistic desires went to such extremes that I found them unhealthy or unhelpful.
It may seem obvious that there are downsides to being extremely altruistic, but I found it helpful to have some concrete examples of real things that people have done. I view it kind of like the difference between someone saying “don’t go to that place” and “don’t go to that place, because X, Y, Z things are likely to occur there.”