Concretely, it assumes a lot of agency.
The words “major life calamities and personal loss”, were key words that really change the amount of agency it’s reasonable to assume.
I could add more examples that touch on these extreme situations, but I was trying to give examples familiar to most of HN.
Even if taking it negatively impacted loved ones (in the short term at least)?
Personally, I just don’t know how to make that kind of decision well beyond a certain point.
And maybe it seems like there's no good option or way out -- but they're too overextended to reason about whether that's actually true.
In those times, if you're in the position of advice-giver, one of the best things you can do is to also help relieve some of that overwhelming/unsolvable pressure that's the most immediate barrier. Maybe the most common examples is to offer crash space.
With the immediate barrier relieved, then you can pair that with now-viable advice, like they need to quit that toxic environment minimum-wage job, or do couples-counseling or break up with that troubled relationship, or move out of that bad locale, or try out for this better job opportunity you can refer them to, or whatever the bigger problem is.
Not only for whether it's ever worthwhile in your role and how you benefit, but also for pacing.
For example, if you're a startup cofounder, in a good team, and you win big if the startup wins big, then you might put in that 110% frequently -- but you save your superhuman 200% bursts for emergencies, so that you can reliably put in close to 100% every day, not start making fatigued huge mess-ups.
For another example, if you're a series B startup hire, being paid below-market, with 0.01% stock options that will never be worth exercising, and the founding team turns out to be bad at everything except raising ZIRP money and beer-pong-- then you should still do right by your good teammates, and also be professional in general, but don't spend years burning yourself out at 110% while watching the dysfunctional company just urinate away everyone's contributions. Spend that extra 10% energy of yours in searching for a better situation.