Thanks for your comment and sharing your story. I understand what you mean about EA making you feel worse—making your comparison group extremely smart people can further diminish confidence in one’s abilities.
I would say getting your self-worth back is definitely career capital, or can be viewed as something that will make you much more effective in the long term compared with if you’d stayed in the mental state you felt prior to this job. Your temporary job will have been a lot more ‘useful’ than mine was (trust me on this) and it doesn’t mean it was devoid of developing your soft skills and confidence.
I’m glad you’ve found a job you’re now happy with. My new job will probably have minimal impact too for the first few years while I train and am a more junior member of staff. But try to retain some optimism—assuming you’re not much older than I am, even if AI takes over there will be some way to have impact—I very much hope! Like with action to target climate change, feeling all is doom can equal inaction.
A friend recently reminded me that it’s possible (but not certain) that some humans have an impact on the world even after AI takeover. If true, careers can be long.
Thanks for your comment and sharing your story. I understand what you mean about EA making you feel worse—making your comparison group extremely smart people can further diminish confidence in one’s abilities.
I would say getting your self-worth back is definitely career capital, or can be viewed as something that will make you much more effective in the long term compared with if you’d stayed in the mental state you felt prior to this job. Your temporary job will have been a lot more ‘useful’ than mine was (trust me on this) and it doesn’t mean it was devoid of developing your soft skills and confidence.
I’m glad you’ve found a job you’re now happy with. My new job will probably have minimal impact too for the first few years while I train and am a more junior member of staff. But try to retain some optimism—assuming you’re not much older than I am, even if AI takes over there will be some way to have impact—I very much hope! Like with action to target climate change, feeling all is doom can equal inaction.
A friend recently reminded me that it’s possible (but not certain) that some humans have an impact on the world even after AI takeover. If true, careers can be long.