Hey Jonas! Good to “see” you! (If I remember right, we met at the EA Fellowship Weekend.) Here are some thoughts:
In addition to some of the things that have already been said (like reminding
myself of the suffering in the world and trying to channel my
sadness/anger/frustration/etc. into action to help), I also find it valuable
to remind myself that this is an iterative process of improvement. Ideally,
I’ll continually get better at helping others for the rest of my life and
continually improve my ideas about this topic. This feels especially helpful
when I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of difficult questions to answer
and all the uncertainty that goes with them. I think this iterative mindset is
particularly good for sustainability and longevity in our pursuit. This
doesn’t mean we can sit back and let our future selves do all the work of
course—I think it’s still important to actively avoid becoming
complacent (again, even this point is a balance because I also don’t think
it’s healthy or sustainable to be endlessly self-critical). But I do think it
means that we should keep in mind that this is (ideally) a lifelong pursuit
and that we can’t—and, if some of the ideas behind patient
philanthropy
are true, maybe shouldn’t—have all the answers or all the impact today.
If you can find things that are both valuable/impactful and especially interesting
to you, this can also be a great way to pull in another kind of motivation. If
you can’t always feel emotionally driven to act altruistically, then you can
pull in curiosity, desire to learn, etc. in those and other moments.
While cliche, I also think the idea of being “the change you want to see” is
actually quite useful and profound (which is maybe why it’s a cliche). When I
feel mad about others’ fancy and expensive houses, cars, and lifestyles in a
world that contains vast amounts of preventable suffering and a seemingly
endless list of pressing problems, it helps to remind myself that I can at
least control my decisions about how to use my resources and aim to reduce
suffering / increase well-being in the world. I can work to bring about the
kind of world that I want to see. (Note: I’m not trying to claim that we
can’t influence others’ (non-)altruistic actions with these last few
sentences.)
I want to note that I think the judgment of others that I described above has
had a negative impact on my mental health in my experience, so it seems useful
for me (and maybe others who are similar) to find ways of managing this kind
of judgment. If anyone feels interested in discussing this, please comment or
reach out! I’d be happy to share some of my initial thoughts on potential
methods for doing this.
I think community can be very motivating. If you’re able to find others in
your life who are excited about EA ideas, this might be able to boost your
motivation. I imagine it would also be very energizing if you’re able to introduce
new people to EA and have them get really interested and excited about it.
Here are some community-related
links.
Here are some related links I found that might be useful (disclaimer: I haven’t read
through all of these yet):
Great to “see” you Sean! I do remember our meeting during the conference, an interesting chat for sure. Thank you for the long and deliberate answer, I checked out the stuff you sent and it of course sent me down a rabbit hole of EA motivation which was quite cool. Other than that it makes sense to modify my working process and goals a bit in order to get motivation from other sources than altruism. I think the two main things I take with me from the advice here is to have a more written account of why I do things but most importantly I need to get into the EA loop and I need to actively engage with the community more to get more reminders of why I do things. I’m however lazy and I will only answer you even though I enjoyed the other’s answers too.
Hey Jonas! Good to “see” you! (If I remember right, we met at the EA Fellowship Weekend.) Here are some thoughts:
In addition to some of the things that have already been said (like reminding myself of the suffering in the world and trying to channel my sadness/anger/frustration/etc. into action to help), I also find it valuable to remind myself that this is an iterative process of improvement. Ideally, I’ll continually get better at helping others for the rest of my life and continually improve my ideas about this topic. This feels especially helpful when I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of difficult questions to answer and all the uncertainty that goes with them. I think this iterative mindset is particularly good for sustainability and longevity in our pursuit. This doesn’t mean we can sit back and let our future selves do all the work of course—I think it’s still important to actively avoid becoming complacent (again, even this point is a balance because I also don’t think it’s healthy or sustainable to be endlessly self-critical). But I do think it means that we should keep in mind that this is (ideally) a lifelong pursuit and that we can’t—and, if some of the ideas behind patient philanthropy are true, maybe shouldn’t—have all the answers or all the impact today.
If you can find things that are both valuable/impactful and especially interesting to you, this can also be a great way to pull in another kind of motivation. If you can’t always feel emotionally driven to act altruistically, then you can pull in curiosity, desire to learn, etc. in those and other moments.
While cliche, I also think the idea of being “the change you want to see” is actually quite useful and profound (which is maybe why it’s a cliche). When I feel mad about others’ fancy and expensive houses, cars, and lifestyles in a world that contains vast amounts of preventable suffering and a seemingly endless list of pressing problems, it helps to remind myself that I can at least control my decisions about how to use my resources and aim to reduce suffering / increase well-being in the world. I can work to bring about the kind of world that I want to see. (Note: I’m not trying to claim that we can’t influence others’ (non-)altruistic actions with these last few sentences.)
I want to note that I think the judgment of others that I described above has had a negative impact on my mental health in my experience, so it seems useful for me (and maybe others who are similar) to find ways of managing this kind of judgment. If anyone feels interested in discussing this, please comment or reach out! I’d be happy to share some of my initial thoughts on potential methods for doing this.
I think community can be very motivating. If you’re able to find others in your life who are excited about EA ideas, this might be able to boost your motivation. I imagine it would also be very energizing if you’re able to introduce new people to EA and have them get really interested and excited about it. Here are some community-related links.
Here are some related links I found that might be useful (disclaimer: I haven’t read through all of these yet):
Sustaining an EA Lifestyle
Helen Toner: Sustainable Motivation
Nate Soares: Altruistic motivations
Great to “see” you Sean! I do remember our meeting during the conference, an interesting chat for sure.
Thank you for the long and deliberate answer, I checked out the stuff you sent and it of course sent me down a rabbit hole of EA motivation which was quite cool. Other than that it makes sense to modify my working process and goals a bit in order to get motivation from other sources than altruism. I think the two main things I take with me from the advice here is to have a more written account of why I do things but most importantly I need to get into the EA loop and I need to actively engage with the community more to get more reminders of why I do things. I’m however lazy and I will only answer you even though I enjoyed the other’s answers too.