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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: It's ok to leave EA, published by Julia Wise on January 28, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Crossposted from my new blog, Otherwise. Several times in the last few weeks I’ve seen someone saying EA has become really bad for them. I don’t have anything really profound to say here, just that I think it’s fine to leave if you need to. There are lots of ways to engage with EA, and sometimes if you’re burnt out on some aspects there are other aspects that still feel viable and invigorating. But maybe there aren’t. Maybe the whole thing makes you want to hide in bed. And if so, I think you should trust your gut. Not to hide in bed, at least not for a long time, but to get some space from EA. For a while, interviewing childcare providers caused me to feel especially doom-y. No one was doing anything wrong, but I hated the whole process. I was simultaneously afraid they wouldn’t like my family enough to want to work for us, and that I’d choose someone bad. After a difficult round of interviews, we found someone and stuck with the arrangement longer than was ideal partly so I wouldn’t have to go through the search as soon. Two years later, I was in a different headspace and able to do the task without so much worry. I realize “take some space” might be easier said than done, especially if you work in the EA space or a lot of your social life is there. Maybe try out a small experiment first: a vacation from EA-related work, reading, or actions. A tiny minority of the people making progress on the world’s problems call themselves EA. There’s a ton of good work to be done outside this space. Or maybe you need to get back to more basic human stuff: eating, sleeping, moving, feeling. If you think you might need to just focus on that for a while, I encourage you to try it. I want to tell you that taking care of yourself is what’s best for impact. But is it? I don’t know. I’m sure it’s true in some circumstances and not in others. My guess is that if you feel like you’re drowning, you need to disrupt something about your circumstances, and you’ll eventually be more able to do good work (in EA or outside EA) than if you’d continue struggling in the same place. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.