It is probably totally inappropriate to respond to questions on an AMA for other people, but I thought I’d mention anyway that I loved a talk (linked below) that Hayden Wilkinson gave, which was very relevant to this.
Hayden pointed out that even if, theoretically, your only goal* was to help others as much as you can over your lifetime, you still need to take into account that you are human and what you do now changes what your future self is likely to want to do. If you try and do an extreme amount now, with no plan to give yourself a break from this extreme amount when you need one, then your lifetime impact will probably be less than if you set yourself much less demanding targets. If you then find that the less demanding targets are easy to maintain and you think you really could do more, at that point you can rev up. Likewise, when what you are doing feels too much (even if theoretically, you think you should be doing even more), giving yourself permission to properly take care of yourself in the short-term might be the best way to increase your impact over your lifetime.
*For the record, I’d guess that for almost everyone within the EA community, doing as much as they can to help others isn’t even their only goal in life, even if it is still a very high priority for them (and for almost all goals that a person might have, self-care for your long-term wellbeing seems really important). I have other goals (like having an enjoyable life) because I am not perfectly selfless, but I think it is plausible that letting myself have other goals increases the chances that this goal (the goal of helping others as much as I can with a significant proportion of my time and money) will be a pretty high priority for me for the rest of my life.
It is probably totally inappropriate to respond to questions on an AMA for other people, but I thought I’d mention anyway that I loved a talk (linked below) that Hayden Wilkinson gave, which was very relevant to this.
Hayden pointed out that even if, theoretically, your only goal* was to help others as much as you can over your lifetime, you still need to take into account that you are human and what you do now changes what your future self is likely to want to do. If you try and do an extreme amount now, with no plan to give yourself a break from this extreme amount when you need one, then your lifetime impact will probably be less than if you set yourself much less demanding targets. If you then find that the less demanding targets are easy to maintain and you think you really could do more, at that point you can rev up. Likewise, when what you are doing feels too much (even if theoretically, you think you should be doing even more), giving yourself permission to properly take care of yourself in the short-term might be the best way to increase your impact over your lifetime.
*For the record, I’d guess that for almost everyone within the EA community, doing as much as they can to help others isn’t even their only goal in life, even if it is still a very high priority for them (and for almost all goals that a person might have, self-care for your long-term wellbeing seems really important). I have other goals (like having an enjoyable life) because I am not perfectly selfless, but I think it is plausible that letting myself have other goals increases the chances that this goal (the goal of helping others as much as I can with a significant proportion of my time and money) will be a pretty high priority for me for the rest of my life.
Thank you for sending this Sofia, I’m glad you decided to inappropriately answer my question!
Yay! I’m glad :)