I see 4 people said they agreed with the post and 3 disagreed, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on this. (I was the 5th person to give the post Agreement Karma, which I endorse with some nuance added below.)
I’ve considered going on a long hike before and like you I believed the main consideration against doing so was the opportunity cost for my career and pursuit of having an altruistic impact.
It seemed to me that clearly there was something else I could do that would be better for my career and altruistic impact that e.g. taking 6 months to go hike the Appalachian Trail so I dismissed considering the possibility more seriously, as tempting as it was. (Bill Bryson’s book A Walk in the Woods tempted me when I read it in 2012.)
I still think that most young people who actually do decide to go on such a long hike could have done something else that would have been better for their career and pursuit of the most good, and I think the same would have been true of my former self had I decided to actually spend 6 months going for such a long walk.
That said, what my life experience thus far (a very lackluster career) makes obvious to me now is that deciding against going for a 6-month hike on the basis that it was almost definitely subpotimal was a mistake. After all, almost every potential path is suboptimal, whether it’s a 6-month hike, Job A, Job B, or almost every other concrete option.
A more reasonable way to think about the question is whether the long hike seems better or worse than the other options one is considering. And on that note I’d opine that there are many unideal jobs that one could work for 6 months that’d be worse than spending those 6 months on a long hike that one is really motivated to do.
And I don’t just mean trash jobs one isn’t considering. Rather, I think going on a 6-month hike can actually often be better than the job-path one would have taken otherwise.
Reflecting on my own past, it’s not clear to me that had younger-me spent 6 months going for a long hike that that would have been worse than what I actually did. I’ve spent a lot of time in mediocre jobs and also a lot of time not working and yet not doing any intentional career-break project like a long hike. So I think going for a long hike would have been quite a reasonable decision had I chosen to do so. It very likely wouldn’t have been optimal path, but it may well have been a good decision, better than the likely counterfactuals.
Thanks for sharing this! I really appreciated hearing your personal experience and perspective on this.
I agree that it’s important to consider the realistic counterfactual (maybe that term is already implying ‘realistic’, but just wanted to emphasise it). There’s definitely a world in which I could have spent six months doing something that was even better for my career on the whole. But, whether I actually knew what that alternative was or would have actually done it is a different story.
Your message that almost everything is suboptimal is also really insightful. I agree, and think that trying to pursue the ‘optimal’ path can lead to some anxiety (e.g., “What if I’m not doing the best thing I could be doing?”) and sometimes away from action (e.g., “I’m going to say no to this opportunity, because I can imagine something being better / more impactful”). I obviously still think it’s worth considering impact and weighing different options against each other, but while always keeping in mind what’s realistic (and that what you choose might not optimal in the ideal world).
This is a very interesting point of view. I also noticed that there were some disagree-votes. There is so much context to these individual choices, and I would be interested in hearing which specific points people disagree with.
Thanks for sharing about your experience.
I see 4 people said they agreed with the post and 3 disagreed, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on this. (I was the 5th person to give the post Agreement Karma, which I endorse with some nuance added below.)
I’ve considered going on a long hike before and like you I believed the main consideration against doing so was the opportunity cost for my career and pursuit of having an altruistic impact.
It seemed to me that clearly there was something else I could do that would be better for my career and altruistic impact that e.g. taking 6 months to go hike the Appalachian Trail so I dismissed considering the possibility more seriously, as tempting as it was. (Bill Bryson’s book A Walk in the Woods tempted me when I read it in 2012.)
I still think that most young people who actually do decide to go on such a long hike could have done something else that would have been better for their career and pursuit of the most good, and I think the same would have been true of my former self had I decided to actually spend 6 months going for such a long walk.
That said, what my life experience thus far (a very lackluster career) makes obvious to me now is that deciding against going for a 6-month hike on the basis that it was almost definitely subpotimal was a mistake. After all, almost every potential path is suboptimal, whether it’s a 6-month hike, Job A, Job B, or almost every other concrete option.
A more reasonable way to think about the question is whether the long hike seems better or worse than the other options one is considering. And on that note I’d opine that there are many unideal jobs that one could work for 6 months that’d be worse than spending those 6 months on a long hike that one is really motivated to do.
And I don’t just mean trash jobs one isn’t considering. Rather, I think going on a 6-month hike can actually often be better than the job-path one would have taken otherwise.
Reflecting on my own past, it’s not clear to me that had younger-me spent 6 months going for a long hike that that would have been worse than what I actually did. I’ve spent a lot of time in mediocre jobs and also a lot of time not working and yet not doing any intentional career-break project like a long hike. So I think going for a long hike would have been quite a reasonable decision had I chosen to do so. It very likely wouldn’t have been optimal path, but it may well have been a good decision, better than the likely counterfactuals.
Thanks for sharing this! I really appreciated hearing your personal experience and perspective on this.
I agree that it’s important to consider the realistic counterfactual (maybe that term is already implying ‘realistic’, but just wanted to emphasise it). There’s definitely a world in which I could have spent six months doing something that was even better for my career on the whole. But, whether I actually knew what that alternative was or would have actually done it is a different story.
Your message that almost everything is suboptimal is also really insightful. I agree, and think that trying to pursue the ‘optimal’ path can lead to some anxiety (e.g., “What if I’m not doing the best thing I could be doing?”) and sometimes away from action (e.g., “I’m going to say no to this opportunity, because I can imagine something being better / more impactful”). I obviously still think it’s worth considering impact and weighing different options against each other, but while always keeping in mind what’s realistic (and that what you choose might not optimal in the ideal world).
Thanks again for the reflections, William.
This is a very interesting point of view. I also noticed that there were some disagree-votes. There is so much context to these individual choices, and I would be interested in hearing which specific points people disagree with.