Thank you so much Catherine! Very inspiring post. I appreciate the details of how you were feeling at each point in time, and how you now feel looking back.
I know you say you don’t really endorse this thought: “oh these young EA whippersnappers, expecting so much! They don’t know how good they got it...”.
But at least in my case, I have noticed recently that I have been <inserting financial or personal sacrifice> and expecting something back in return. So you sharing your instinctive reaction was exactly what I needed to hear to remind me there are other (often better) ways to think about sacrifice.
Sacrifice is an interesting concept. In my background of Christianity it is the topic of endless debate. Sometimes people obviously sacrifice for a cause (martin Luther king, Nelson Mandela). But if someone like usI just gives up potential money and comfort but gain peace, satisfaction and deep meaning in our life, canwe really don’t that as sacrifice or should we just call it good life decisions?
There are definitely different levels of sacrifice. I certainly wouldn’t compare any sacrifice I’ve made to what Mandela, or King, or Jesus did.
But I don’t think sacrifice is an inappropriate word in this context. We say that athletes make sacrifices to achieve their goals—in terms of time, physical pain, dietary restrictions, giving up socialization to get enough sleep. I think the sorts of tradeoffs an EA might be confronted with are comparable to that notion of sacrifice—giving up certain luxuries to donate more, or working on an important project for two hours on a weeknight when you’d rather watch a movie. For both the athlete and the EA, in the end they get more satisfaction for doing the disciplined thing. They think their goal is worth sacrificing for.
But maybe you’re hinting that a lot of us need to emphasize more the “peace, satisfaction, and deep meaning” when talking about why we do what we do. I do agree with that. Less “woe is me” and more “look how rich my life is because I’m working on something I think is important.”
I don’t think that’s incompatible with the idea of sacrifice—maybe just a matter of giving the right emphasis in the right context.
(the above sounds a bit sanctimonious haha—I’m really not that sacrificing a person, and I’m talking more about the ideals I strive for than what I actually achieve)
Thank you so much Catherine! Very inspiring post. I appreciate the details of how you were feeling at each point in time, and how you now feel looking back.
I know you say you don’t really endorse this thought: “oh these young EA whippersnappers, expecting so much! They don’t know how good they got it...”.
But at least in my case, I have noticed recently that I have been <inserting financial or personal sacrifice> and expecting something back in return. So you sharing your instinctive reaction was exactly what I needed to hear to remind me there are other (often better) ways to think about sacrifice.
Sacrifice is an interesting concept. In my background of Christianity it is the topic of endless debate. Sometimes people obviously sacrifice for a cause (martin Luther king, Nelson Mandela). But if someone like usI just gives up potential money and comfort but gain peace, satisfaction and deep meaning in our life, canwe really don’t that as sacrifice or should we just call it good life decisions?
There are definitely different levels of sacrifice. I certainly wouldn’t compare any sacrifice I’ve made to what Mandela, or King, or Jesus did.
But I don’t think sacrifice is an inappropriate word in this context. We say that athletes make sacrifices to achieve their goals—in terms of time, physical pain, dietary restrictions, giving up socialization to get enough sleep. I think the sorts of tradeoffs an EA might be confronted with are comparable to that notion of sacrifice—giving up certain luxuries to donate more, or working on an important project for two hours on a weeknight when you’d rather watch a movie. For both the athlete and the EA, in the end they get more satisfaction for doing the disciplined thing. They think their goal is worth sacrificing for.
But maybe you’re hinting that a lot of us need to emphasize more the “peace, satisfaction, and deep meaning” when talking about why we do what we do. I do agree with that. Less “woe is me” and more “look how rich my life is because I’m working on something I think is important.”
I don’t think that’s incompatible with the idea of sacrifice—maybe just a matter of giving the right emphasis in the right context.
(the above sounds a bit sanctimonious haha—I’m really not that sacrificing a person, and I’m talking more about the ideals I strive for than what I actually achieve)