Benjamin Todd

If you're around people who regularly bend the truth, you're likely to become less honest, because it'll feel ubiquitous and acceptable.

So choose your communities carefully.

Each community has a unique culture, so we recommend trying out several and seeing which are best for you.

And it's healthy to spend time in several communities, so your sense of your identity and connections aren't too dependent on one group or set of ideas, which can make the views of the group hard to question and have an echo chamber effect.

As an exercise, make a list of several communities you might join.

Meet a variety of people and attend events within each one.

And then get more involved in those, ideally more than one, that you think are most supportive for you at this time.

By community, we mean something very broad.

It could be anything from a casual group of friends who are interested in the same thing to larger movements like animal welfare with conferences and websites.

So when thinking about the communities you'd like to join, don't only think about formal organizations.

Rather, think about the types of people you'd most like to be around and then think how you might achieve that.

This could even involve setting up your own small community by getting together a group of friends, starting a reading group or Slack and so on.

Here are some categories to help you generate ideas.

If you're interested in working on a specific global problem such as biosecurity or factory farming, there is probably at least one community or several in that field.

If you're focused on a particular way of doing good, such as research, writing, journalism or entrepreneurship, there are probably communities around that.

There are relevant political and ideological communities dedicated to broad ways of doing good, such as social entrepreneurship, progress studies, animal welfare, socialism, libertarianism, and social justice.

Many of our readers also join communities that aren't directly about doing good, but are supportive for personal development.

For example, non-violent communication, rationality, and religious communities that promote important virtues.

Finally, there's the effective altruism community, which we count ourselves as part of.

How can the Effective Altruism community boost your career?