Thanks for writing this Ryan! I think it’s valuable for many EAs, myself included. I have found my mind circling around this idea that “health is instrumentally useful” for some time now and you’ve made a strong case for it.
I’m just gonna write here about my thoughts on improving my exercise, and maybe somebody else will relate.
I don’t exercise enough, because of 2 excuses: (a) today’s work is more pressing than exercising, I can delay until another time; (b) exercising properly takes some time investment to prevent injury, and it’s not worth investing the time
I think these concerns come from a mindset of greedily maximising impact, leading to minimising self-care. Of course, my approach is not ACTUALLY maximising impact because personal health is instrumentally useful. But without careful thought it’s easy to fall into the heuristic which says “maximise the amount of time thinking about EA stuff”—I think the actual process of living an impactful life involves a much more nuanced thought process than this heuristic.
It helps to hear this message from you, Ryan. It’s somewhat given me license to devote more time to exercising.
Thanks for writing this Ryan! I think it’s valuable for many EAs, myself included. I have found my mind circling around this idea that “health is instrumentally useful” for some time now and you’ve made a strong case for it.
I’m just gonna write here about my thoughts on improving my exercise, and maybe somebody else will relate.
I don’t exercise enough, because of 2 excuses: (a) today’s work is more pressing than exercising, I can delay until another time; (b) exercising properly takes some time investment to prevent injury, and it’s not worth investing the time
I think these concerns come from a mindset of greedily maximising impact, leading to minimising self-care. Of course, my approach is not ACTUALLY maximising impact because personal health is instrumentally useful. But without careful thought it’s easy to fall into the heuristic which says “maximise the amount of time thinking about EA stuff”—I think the actual process of living an impactful life involves a much more nuanced thought process than this heuristic.
It helps to hear this message from you, Ryan. It’s somewhat given me license to devote more time to exercising.