Love almost all of this. I worry that (3) is making the common rationalist mistake of basing a strategy on the type of person you wish you were rather than the type you are. (Striding toward Unhappiness, we might call it).
So, you wish that your passion for a cause were more strongly correlated with the utilitarian benefit of that cause, and game the instinct to work on what feels good with small gifts while putting most of your effort towards what you think is optimal. But if the result is working on something you aren’t as passionate and excited about, you may work less effectively, burn out on helping the world, or just be miserable. Your taste for a cause is what it is, not what you want it to be. It matters whether you feel good about what you do.
(4) compensates to this for some degree—you will tend to try to find reasons to value & love whatever you do, so to some extent you can pick a cause first and fall in love with it later. But this doesn’t always work, and can result in demotivated team members who demoralize others. A passionate & excited team is a high-performing team.
Love almost all of this. I worry that (3) is making the common rationalist mistake of basing a strategy on the type of person you wish you were rather than the type you are. (Striding toward Unhappiness, we might call it).
So, you wish that your passion for a cause were more strongly correlated with the utilitarian benefit of that cause, and game the instinct to work on what feels good with small gifts while putting most of your effort towards what you think is optimal. But if the result is working on something you aren’t as passionate and excited about, you may work less effectively, burn out on helping the world, or just be miserable. Your taste for a cause is what it is, not what you want it to be. It matters whether you feel good about what you do.
(4) compensates to this for some degree—you will tend to try to find reasons to value & love whatever you do, so to some extent you can pick a cause first and fall in love with it later. But this doesn’t always work, and can result in demotivated team members who demoralize others. A passionate & excited team is a high-performing team.