Things that limit my ambition in EA
TLDR: These are just some thoughts I have had for the last months. Thoughts related to wanting to do as much good as possible but feeling anchored by a mix of uncertainties and fears. With this post I just want (mainly for myself) to write down some of the things that I think are stopping me from doing as much good as possible and if you can redirect me towards some resources that would clear some of these uncertainties or ease some of these fears I would very much appreciate it!
(Note: rereading some of the points I initially wrote they did seem less worrying, but I will still leave them in case they have crossed someone else mind as well)
(Note: many of the examples relate to applying to an EA Org but would apply even more to starting my own EA Org. In the title I mention “ambition” but can also be understood as more involvement in EA, mainly doing the jump from working outside EA to work full time in an EA aligned job)
Financial stability
I am aware of the current funding situation on EA and that helps a bit to feel more comfortable but still this is something that scares me. This fear is not only for my own financial stability but also for the people depending on my salary, which likely makes the fear more irrational. My current understanding is that EA Orgs mainly want the best of the best, so even if you make it through the interview process and get the job (congrats if you did!), what if you are actually not the best of the best? Here the rate of fired employees in EA Orgs would help but I have not found any on the Forum.
Another scenario: someone working in a big European company, in a well established industry, where she knows she has a stable safety net and nothing will happen if she gets long term sickness (from you or a member of your family), or a period of low productivity (for whatever reason),… This helps her to build a comfort zone to live without financial worries for her and her family. What would you tell her to embrace the jump of going to work to a very small, not-long-ago founded Organization? This question might apply for Entrepreneurship in general but in my head it is very different failing in a start-up in Silicon Valley than failing in a start-up in EA.
The world’s responsibility on my shoulders
I have had some calls with EAs that ended with the comments like “Let’s save the world” or similar. Initially I found these comments funny and encouraging but sometimes when I think about it I get a bit anxious. EA is not aiming to anything little than achieving the MOST good. If you consider big scales in time and space, the world is the smallest thing to save here! I have watched some talks about embracing the difficulty of EA but I guess people working in EA Orgs do still feel this pressure (maybe to different degrees) of failure sometimes. So would be great on hearing tips or something on how to deal with this. Personally I do mindfulness meditation but I guess there are different/better ways to cope with this.
Fear of burnout
Coming back to the start-ups example (just because I think many EA Orgs are basically start-ups, but happy to be wrong): burnout, working long hours, poor work-life balance, … all of them seem more or less associated with the start-up industry. However, in the industry your goal (usually) is to make a lot of money, and if it turns out bad then you can tell yourself “it is just money”. So if you get burned it is “easier” go a step back or go out, because in the end it is just money. But how do you face this when it is not just money but actually lives.
This point is a bit mixed with the previous point but I think my main uncertainty is, how do you deal with burnout in EA?
Reading/Hearing from Luisa Rodriquez helped me, but I still see my thoughts on a vicious circle sometimes: “Shit! the world is burning and I am not doing enough”...(some hours/days/weeks/months of unstable-working later)...”I am out of this! It cannot be that important”...(some time unplugged from EA later)...”Shit 2.0! the world is burning and I am actively ignoring it”...(viscous circles with different degrees of intensities)
Having my closest people suffering the consequences of my work-alcoholism
For an EA Org is definitely more effective having less people doing more than the opposite, but regardless of the impact than that (burnout, working long hours, poor work-life balance,...) would have on me, I am also scared how that would affect the closest people to me since they will suffer some of the consequences for the choices I have taken.
I know I am not being 100% utilitarian here but if anyone has advice for non 100%-utilitarians it is more than welcome.
Fear of not being good enough
It might be that the quality of the work done by employees at EA Orgs is considerably different and not correlated to the level of epistemics in the EA Forum posts. But I have no much else to compare and reading the EA Forum I sometimes feel like “These people is just too smart for me”. So my irrational mind associates this to not being good enough for a EA Org, or for EA in general.
Knowing how ineffective interview processes can be this fear can also be translated into me not applying to a position thinking that someone smarter would get the job. And if I would get the job actually I would be taking the place from someone more qualified than me.
This might be related to the “impostor syndrome”, but not 100% since I do have problems sometimes following the complex conversations that EAs are used to. Something that I never experience in my current job.
Personal take on rejection
This last one is probably less related to EA, in the sense that the acceptance rates at EA Orgs/Fund might be similar to those of the industry (Are they?). But everyone I know got either rejected or didn’t hear at all back from the EA position/grant she/he applied to. Often the replies are “Thanks but not thanks” or just silence.
Even if I tell myself “Sure it is okay since they are busy saving the world” at the same time it is just an email and takes very little effort. In my experience applying for jobs outside EA has been considerably easier/nicer than inside EA. So if you have any tricks to cope with this please let me know :) also if you have other experiences
Conclusion
As mentioned above any (anec)data on these topics is very appreciated :)
Also if you have other things limiting yourself I would love to hear either as comment or as a message :)
I like that you shared your thoughts here, and I particularly like the openness/vulnerability/directness involved in this post.
My perspective is that the simplistic narrative of “you should join EA, come apply for this job, start a project, apply for funding” tends to ignore many of the barriers that prevent people from doing do. In my mind, this serves as a bit of a counternarrative to that, showing that there are real barriers.
Thanks for your comment Joseph. I see it the same way you do and personally I would like 80k (or a similar organization) to also focus on addressing these types of barriers as I imagine there are also people who would be a good fit for many of the jobs offered on the job board but have more (surmountable) barriers to applying.
This is very good advice and I think I need to change the mindset and focus more on the goal.
That’s a great observation that I hadn’t heard before. Really with networking being so important it makes sense that one would have to go the extra mile to effectively manage rejection.
I share many of your worries, but I think that luckily they have solutions! Here is what I’ve learned from my own experience in the past couple of years.
Regarding financial stability, I think it’s wise to save in order to have the runway to sustain yourself for several months without income.
Regarding burnout, often my advice to others in this situation is to “try to give 80% effort”, because attempting to give 100% effort leads to burnout in just a few weeks or months.
If you want to maximize positive impact in the world, it has to be sustainable. This means taking care of your physical and mental well-being by exercising and maintaining your friendships and personal connections.
Human psychology is not impartial. As biological and social beings, we need connection and companionship. I’d rather be an “80% effort” Effective Altruist for my whole life instead of being a “100% effort” Effective Altruist for 3 months.
Regarding rejection, I recommend taking rejections as a positive thing showing that you tried your best. I keep a document where I track the things I’ve applied to. I cross off the ones I don’t get, but it’s very satisfying to underline the ones that I get with a nice green color!
Even if the rate of acceptance for publications/uni acceptances/jobs is like 5%, it still means you’ll get accepted to several places every year if you keep on applying and talking to EAs that can give you feedback on your application materials.
Also, don’t take rejections too personally, people don’t really know you. Their perception of you is based on a couple of brief documents.
no doubt this is great advice even if you work outside of EA. Still I have the feeling that similar jobs outside EA are more stable, but maybe I’m wrong as I don’t have too much information about how stable are the jobs/companies in EA.
is also a great piece of advice that I will have to work to assimilate.
that’s a great idea! I’m going to start doing it and see how it works for me :)
Did you see the recent EA Dedicates post? Maybe you’d like it.
Thank you very much for the suggestion! very interesting post, personally I would like to be more “EA Dedicate” and I think I could do more good, but for that I have to work somehow on the points I mentioned above :)
From the post I liked the sentence
because it’s something I often forget