I remind myself that I care about each individual that can be helped by my action. Even if there are huge numbers of individuals I can’t help, there are some I CAN help, and helping each one is worthwhile.
Focus on what you are doing, and who you are helping, not who you aren’t. This is a broader problem than just EA too—you could think of all the possible achievements or research or inventions or friendships you could make in your life, and thus any particular string of them is irrelevant. But if you don’t focus on that infinity of great things you could do, you’re able to realize this particular life is pretty great too. Think of it in terms of ‘if I wasn’t here, these particular people would be worse off’ (usually quite a long list, even for non-EAs—friends, family, colleagues you help out etc.) and your contribution seems a lot more important :-) After all, you’re only one person of that infinity, so if you help more than one person considerably you’ve actually made a big (relative to you) contribution.
I remind myself that I care about each individual that can be helped by my action. Even if there are huge numbers of individuals I can’t help, there are some I CAN help, and helping each one is worthwhile.
Pretty much this.
Focus on what you are doing, and who you are helping, not who you aren’t. This is a broader problem than just EA too—you could think of all the possible achievements or research or inventions or friendships you could make in your life, and thus any particular string of them is irrelevant. But if you don’t focus on that infinity of great things you could do, you’re able to realize this particular life is pretty great too. Think of it in terms of ‘if I wasn’t here, these particular people would be worse off’ (usually quite a long list, even for non-EAs—friends, family, colleagues you help out etc.) and your contribution seems a lot more important :-) After all, you’re only one person of that infinity, so if you help more than one person considerably you’ve actually made a big (relative to you) contribution.