Tja! Good post. I have contemplated this myself for the last few weeks so I am really happy to see you post about it right now. Do you or anyone else have takes on whether it is advisable for people to pursue schlep? The concept on Ikigai, for example, emphasizes passion in what you pursue. Schlep is like the anti-passion. My personality is somewhat adapt at tolerating quite large amounts of schlep so I could just ignore what I think is fun and grit through some serious schlep, using caffeine, nicotine and motivating music as my crutches.
I am asking as some people have advised me against this, and think my impact will be higher, and my life better if I instead, a bit more selfishly pursue what I think is fun and instantly rewarding.
I am really unsure about how to resolve this. I guess the choice would be easy if there are 2 different projects I could work on with similar impact but where the only difference is that I think one is much more fun.
The reality is more like there are some things that are fun, but I am really unsure of the impact, especially the counterfactual impact, as other people seem to think that it is fun too. The schlep option, on the other hand, is stuff where I am really unsure if anyone else would pick it up if I did not pursue it.
To schlep or not to schlep—that is the question. I am partly inspired by Joey at CE—I think he is pretty serious about schlepping if I understood an interview with him correctly (search “sacrifice all your own happiness”). ASB also posted on some serious schlep being needed in biosecurity.
We’re really bad at predicting how a change would affect our happiness. We overwhelmingly overestimate the impact. If you know this, schlep won’t seem as bigger sacrifice
I think we, as a community, need to incentivise schlepping by granting it more social status and discriminating towards people who do it.
Number 2 there sounds like a new EA podcast: “The unsung warriors of EA” or something. All the podcasts are now about the “thinkers” and researchers—fascinating ideas and intellectually stimulating. The new podcast could instead be made interesting by focusing on the pain, challenges and the coping mechanisms of those schlepping hard. Maybe someone could start asking some serious schleppers about how they would like to be recognized, I just thought podcasts are good as they might simultaneously to recognizing people also inspire others to pursue schlep.
Tja! Good post. I have contemplated this myself for the last few weeks so I am really happy to see you post about it right now. Do you or anyone else have takes on whether it is advisable for people to pursue schlep? The concept on Ikigai, for example, emphasizes passion in what you pursue. Schlep is like the anti-passion. My personality is somewhat adapt at tolerating quite large amounts of schlep so I could just ignore what I think is fun and grit through some serious schlep, using caffeine, nicotine and motivating music as my crutches.
I am asking as some people have advised me against this, and think my impact will be higher, and my life better if I instead, a bit more selfishly pursue what I think is fun and instantly rewarding.
I am really unsure about how to resolve this. I guess the choice would be easy if there are 2 different projects I could work on with similar impact but where the only difference is that I think one is much more fun.
The reality is more like there are some things that are fun, but I am really unsure of the impact, especially the counterfactual impact, as other people seem to think that it is fun too. The schlep option, on the other hand, is stuff where I am really unsure if anyone else would pick it up if I did not pursue it.
To schlep or not to schlep—that is the question. I am partly inspired by Joey at CE—I think he is pretty serious about schlepping if I understood an interview with him correctly (search “sacrifice all your own happiness”). ASB also posted on some serious schlep being needed in biosecurity.
2 points I’d raise:
We’re really bad at predicting how a change would affect our happiness. We overwhelmingly overestimate the impact. If you know this, schlep won’t seem as bigger sacrifice
I think we, as a community, need to incentivise schlepping by granting it more social status and discriminating towards people who do it.
Number 2 there sounds like a new EA podcast: “The unsung warriors of EA” or something. All the podcasts are now about the “thinkers” and researchers—fascinating ideas and intellectually stimulating. The new podcast could instead be made interesting by focusing on the pain, challenges and the coping mechanisms of those schlepping hard. Maybe someone could start asking some serious schleppers about how they would like to be recognized, I just thought podcasts are good as they might simultaneously to recognizing people also inspire others to pursue schlep.