I'm a great admirer of the 80000hours initiative, ever since I've learned about it. And that's the thing, I was introduced to EA and 80kh relatively late in my life imo. I'm not a student, graduate, or even junior in the field. I'm two decades older senior-level employee without a chance to switch to an impactful career.
I've learned about EA 3 years ago, it took me 2 years to stop fantasizing that there is anything I can do with my career path so my "last resort" was earning to give program. I took the pledge last year and almost immediately felt the pressure to not go down with my salary but to make it as high as possible. There are million other factors at stake, personal and professional, and I need to say it, I feel completely lost at times. I only know I need to move forward, but I can get so critical about my decisions that it paralyzes me.
Am I the only one? I'm sure there are other people in a similar situation. Mature in age and career, that found EA/80kh too late to adjust life road and struggle in being efficient and impactful.
There is great wisdom in onboarding young people and preventing them from similar struggles later in their life. But there is also untapped potential in mid-life and senior members of the community who are not politicians, researchers, scientists, economists, or entrepreneurs and still want to pitch in. Their, our salaries are probably much higher than when we started, and we might have a bit more influence on our positions. And yes, we still need guidance. I need guidance.
So I wanted to challenge this idea today. 40000hours sounds great. 20000hours sounds even better. I realize that it's much harder to advise senior employees, but the gain might be much higher and more immediate at the start. Worth considering I think.
Oh, this is great, I'm loving so many points, we have similar struggles indeed.
I went through all stages of grief with my occupation. I struggled with burnout for 7 years. I passionately started to hate a job I loved so much in the beginning. The reason was projects and the sector, maybe similarly like in your case.
In my case I think the trigger was when I was asked to design a mobile app for a burger restaurant, with the goal to tune up "up-sales", to generate more revenue for the franchise. I was a vegetarian at that time, thinking of going vegan (which I also am already). That's what I identify as the beginning of my burnout and prelude to depression.
That's the exact reason why I outline the story of my burnout. The guilt. It cost me a few years of total inactivity, which wasn't a big deal because at that time I was focusing on very ineffective volunteering (helping animal shelters). But if I'm to go through it now - with my current mindset and need of maximizing my impact - I'm certain this could be much harder and more dangerous for me. And the movement needs well-functioning members, right?
My husband often repeats - "Just squeeze any penny at your current job, and do side sanity projects on a side" - and it's really wrong approach. I tried that for years, even now involved with EA, and it's not doing me the favour. I still struggle with depression, not as severe as in past, but still disturbing. It needs to go. I have about 8 years to optimize my path, I don't have time for breakdowns.
The bottom line is there is no selfishness in addressing your needs, especially when you feel the urge to do so much more good.
What is ACC training?
In my specific case, it wouldn't, but like I wrote in the post - I stop fantasizing about getting into an impactful EA job. I recently got an offer with a cut of 25%, but the possibility of some upskilling, that could potentially give me back this 25% salary and more in the future. The thing is, the upskill was not of about 25% (subjectively of course), rather a 5-10%. I declined. I'm able to take cuts, but the return (even hypothetic) needs to balance the cut because I'm dead serious about ETG and ETS commitment.
Agree. I got declined by one of EA related startups and it was much more painful than any other declination.
Yes and no, in my very subjective opinion. For example (and it's only a hypothesis for the sake of explanation) - in my case, it doesn't make sense to make give directly page more intuitive, because the donors are people so well aligned with EA values that a slightly less intuitive interface will not make them back out from donating. But. It makes sense for me to do a usability study on the website of Effective Altruism Poland because the main purpose of this website is to recruit so far unrelated people and incept them with the EA framework.
Will your productivity skills be used in the most optimal way in those organizations? If you are to optimize the server performance, will it be a better contribution than a donation from 70% higher salary? Or are you able to influence the speed of research done on healthcare/alternative protein 20 times? I'm shooting blanks, I'm just trying to make a point here.
Can you pivot to different industries taking your position, salary, and skills unchanged? That's what I'm trying to do.
I work for a pharmaceutical company. It's much more rewarding and meaningful than doing burger apps, but. I have never worked in a field that I feel passionate about, and until my discussion with EA mentor about 3 years ago, I never even allowed myself to have passions or dreams. I'm done with that. It might not be possible, but I want to "have fun" and earn big before I turn 50. Because I have philanthropic goals and I need to be a well-functioning person to meet them, and that means to care more about my mental health and allow myself to have ambitions. The healthy dose of egoism.
Depends. The whole idea of helping neglected causes until they are will stop being as neglected as other ones on the list resonate with me strongly. That's why I trust in GiveWell and Animal Charity Evaluators. But it's much easier to change your donation flow than to change a career dedicated to cause.
True. But they can's solve all the problems with those donations. If they could, we wouldn't have EA and cause areas. Potentially every few bucks is a life of a person that can be saved. We might not see it, but it makes a difference for that person.
Same.
It's long for me too, but I just want to highlight one last thing. This kind of support we can give to each other, it doesn't cost a penny to give subjective advice, especially on the philosophical ground. It might help a tiny bit to clear things up in the head. But there is a much harder level to address: how to literary get from point A to B. That's when solid counseling should step in: