Like many of you, I have struggled with this. It is a complex decision with a lot of uncertainty. For the interim, I found 80,000 hours advice helpful. Their career guide said something to the effect of because I am young, I should TRY multiple fields of work before making a decision.
I actually changed my career plans senior year because of the strong argument EA makes for earning to give. Still, I wonder if earning to give is all it's cracked out to be. Macklemore told his son:
Don't try to change the world, find something that you love, And do it every day
Do that for the rest of your life, And eventually, the world will change
The following is taken from an article with a self-centered perspective. It still applies to the EA career dilemma:
What’s more, as the years pass, you will almost surely develop deep expertise at whatever it is you’ve been doing. At that point, even if few people in any one location place high value on what you do, you may find that your services become extremely valuable economically. That’s because technology has steadily extended the geographic reach of those who are best at what they do. If even a tiny fraction of a sufficiently large group of buyers cares about your service, you may be worth a fortune. There is, of course, no guarantee that you’ll become the best at what you choose to do, or that even if you do you’ll find practical ways to extend your reach enough to earn a big paycheck.
I usually don't care for high risk, high reward scenarios, but I wonder if following your passion through direct work is one of those scenarios. I know with certainty that I could increase my income by at least 8M simply by returning to a career in software or corporate management. I even have some good memories of this sort of work, so it's not like they're terrible jobs. Still, I think there is a point missing in this discussion. Among those who had a large effect on the world, were they pursuing their passion or earning to give?
Moreover, the significant psychological benefit to yourself surely has many ripple effects that increase your impact outside of your career. Maybe that's just wishful thinking.
No offense, but I am most interested in people who have experience with earning to give (>30% of income) and/or following their passion for altruism through direct work.
I've been earning to give for a few years.
I'm not quite sure what the relevance of the second quote is supposed to be; it seems to argue for developing expertise in an area and is agnostic on whether that area should be 'direct' or 'indirect', since it's self-centred in the first place. A hint in what you're getting at might be in your title; you conflate 'follow your passion' with 'direct work'. I submit that while probably more people are passionate about charity work than, say, working in finance, there are far more people who are passionate about neither.
Also, even if you are passionate about an area now, whether you will remain passionate for long enough to develop the expertise described is still in question; this seems like an end-of-history illusion*. This makes the message of the first quote dubious to me; what happens when what you love changes? Which is one of the reasons 80k recommends against 'following your passion' as good career advice for young people especially.
With all that said, if you are an excellent fit for an area (you're good at it, you enjoy it) and it happens to be an area which fits neatly into high-impact direct work or high-donation earning-to-give, then I'd generally recommend people do that. While their passions are likely to change, their current favoured areas are probably a better guide to what they will like in 15 years than picking at random. And that's what I'm doing. But those are the easy cases ;) Everyone else has to think a bit harder unfortunately, and that's where 80k comes in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-of-history_illusion
"The end-of-history illusion is a psychological illusion in which individuals of all ages believe that they have experienced significant personal growth and changes in tastes up to the present moment, but will not substantially grow or mature in the future.[1] Despite recognizing that their perceptions have evolved, individuals predict that their perceptions will remain roughly the same in the future."
Regarding the second quote, pretend you're debating between a job you love and a job that pays double. The quote is saying that if you really love the job, you may wind up being paid comparably anyway, because people who are passionate about their work tend to be the best, and tend to be paid way more than average.