Will—of course I have some lingering reservations but I do want to acknowledge how much you’ve changed and improved my life.
You definitely changed my life by co-creating Centre for Effective Altruism, which played a large role in organizations like Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours, which is what drew me into EA. I was also very inspired by “Doing Good Better”.
To get more personal—you also changed my life when you told me in 2013 pretty frankly that my original plan to pursue a Political Science PhD wasn’t very impactful and that I should consider 80,000 Hours career coaching instead, which I did.
You also changed my life by being open about taking antidepressants, which is ~90% of the reason why I decided to also consider taking antidepressants even though I didn’t feel “depressed enough” (I definitely was). I felt like if you were taking them and you seemed normal / fine / not clearly and obviously depressed all the time yet benefitted from them that maybe I would also benefit them (I did). It really shattered a stereotype for me.
You’re now an inspiration for me in terms of resilience. Having an impact journey isn’t always everything up and up and up all the time. 2022 and 2023 were hard for me. I imagine they were much harder for you—but you persevere, smile, and continue to show your face. I like that and want to be like that too.
Will—of course I have some lingering reservations but I do want to acknowledge how much you’ve changed and improved my life.
You definitely changed my life by co-creating Centre for Effective Altruism, which played a large role in organizations like Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours, which is what drew me into EA. I was also very inspired by “Doing Good Better”.
To get more personal—you also changed my life when you told me in 2013 pretty frankly that my original plan to pursue a Political Science PhD wasn’t very impactful and that I should consider 80,000 Hours career coaching instead, which I did.
You also changed my life by being open about taking antidepressants, which is ~90% of the reason why I decided to also consider taking antidepressants even though I didn’t feel “depressed enough” (I definitely was). I felt like if you were taking them and you seemed normal / fine / not clearly and obviously depressed all the time yet benefitted from them that maybe I would also benefit them (I did). It really shattered a stereotype for me.
You’re now an inspiration for me in terms of resilience. Having an impact journey isn’t always everything up and up and up all the time. 2022 and 2023 were hard for me. I imagine they were much harder for you—but you persevere, smile, and continue to show your face. I like that and want to be like that too.