Thank you for sharing, I think your post will resonate with many people and show them they are not alone in their struggles. I’ve gone through similar phases of depression, guilt, feelings of rejection and not allowing myself to seek help or complain as I’m much better off than 99% of the world. This sucks.
The Celebrating Failure at the fUnconference that Ludwig mentioned felt cathartic to me as people shared professional and personal failures. In EA we’re an unusual community as we try hard and constantly fail at our expectations. This goes for people applying for jobs as well as leaders of EA orgs. A coach recently told me most calls with them turn to mental health problems at some point.
I hope you will find a community that supports you. I have proposed Masterminds as a format and am in talks to see how we can make it happen. But I’ve heard of more similar remote formats and interventions that are planned and am hopeful we will see some soon.
So I think there are really compelling reasons to think that the “optimal strategy” to follow is one that probably fails — but if it doesn’t fail, it’s great. But as a community, what that would imply is this weird thing where you almost celebrate cases where someone completely craps out — where things end up nowhere close to what they could have been — because that’s what the majority of well-played strategies should end with. I don’t think that we recognize that enough as a community, and I think there are lots of specific instances as well where we don’t incentivize that.
Also really helpful was the book by Julian Simon where he talks about overcoming depression in a very relatable way (link via Rob Wiblin).
I shudder to think that someone who donates any amount to AMF would ever feel bad about it, yet I know how hard it can be to convince oneself otherwise.
I recently read the Notes From a Pledger who I similarly far away from a hub and is ok with donating. The comment by Michelle Hutchinson touched me as it brought back the realisation that we’re already doing so much more than most people in donating. It’s great to aim high and try to get a job in EA but there is no shame in failing, getting a normal job and continuing with donations.
Just trying and failing is something to be celebrated as most people never try. Thank you for trying!
Thank you for sharing, I think your post will resonate with many people and show them they are not alone in their struggles. I’ve gone through similar phases of depression, guilt, feelings of rejection and not allowing myself to seek help or complain as I’m much better off than 99% of the world. This sucks.
The Celebrating Failure at the fUnconference that Ludwig mentioned felt cathartic to me as people shared professional and personal failures. In EA we’re an unusual community as we try hard and constantly fail at our expectations. This goes for people applying for jobs as well as leaders of EA orgs. A coach recently told me most calls with them turn to mental health problems at some point.
I hope you will find a community that supports you. I have proposed Masterminds as a format and am in talks to see how we can make it happen. But I’ve heard of more similar remote formats and interventions that are planned and am hopeful we will see some soon.
As a side note: What helped me in the last months were the 80K talk where Will MacAskill talks about his depression and the one with Sam Bankman-Fried where he agrees that most people will fail trying:
Also really helpful was the book by Julian Simon where he talks about overcoming depression in a very relatable way (link via Rob Wiblin).
I recently read the Notes From a Pledger who I similarly far away from a hub and is ok with donating. The comment by Michelle Hutchinson touched me as it brought back the realisation that we’re already doing so much more than most people in donating. It’s great to aim high and try to get a job in EA but there is no shame in failing, getting a normal job and continuing with donations.
Just trying and failing is something to be celebrated as most people never try. Thank you for trying!