You probably wouldn’t consider yourself an EA if it didn’t improve your life.
I don’t think EAs should keep doing things that make them miserable (as with the noisy housing example someone gives below), but I don’t think personal benefit is or should be the main reason to do EA. I’m not a fan of the obligation/excitement dichotomy because I feel some of both, but the word that fits best to me is “determination.”
I get benefits from being part of EA, like friendships with smart and caring people. But there are other smart and caring people I could have met in other communities, and I’d probably be personally a bit happier if I made some other community my main focus, one with less emphasis on animal suffering and existential risk.
To paraphrase a Greg Lewis piece, it would be surprising if the community that’s best for improving the world is also best for my personal satisfaction. I’ve chosen to make this community my main focus because I think it lets me make progress on problems in the world, and it also feels sustainable for me to do so (even though not the most enjoyable thing I could focus on). And part of what makes it sustainable is also having family/parenting as the other major focus in my life, so that EA is not the only thing going on for me.
I don’t think EAs should keep doing things that make them miserable (as with the noisy housing example someone gives below), but I don’t think personal benefit is or should be the main reason to do EA. I’m not a fan of the obligation/excitement dichotomy because I feel some of both, but the word that fits best to me is “determination.”
I get benefits from being part of EA, like friendships with smart and caring people. But there are other smart and caring people I could have met in other communities, and I’d probably be personally a bit happier if I made some other community my main focus, one with less emphasis on animal suffering and existential risk.
To paraphrase a Greg Lewis piece, it would be surprising if the community that’s best for improving the world is also best for my personal satisfaction. I’ve chosen to make this community my main focus because I think it lets me make progress on problems in the world, and it also feels sustainable for me to do so (even though not the most enjoyable thing I could focus on). And part of what makes it sustainable is also having family/parenting as the other major focus in my life, so that EA is not the only thing going on for me.