Has spending so much time with these extreme altruists changed your personal view about doing good?

I think we have this notion that anyone who is so committed morally must be living in a hovel somewhere, eating dirt and weeping. This is just not true. Watching these people live their lives has really brought this home to me.

And you also have something which is more valuable than almost anything else. All these people have a feeling that they are living their life as they ought to. It’s one of the differences between them and the rest of us: they don’t feel that they have a choice about whether they should help others or not. What they show you is you can live a happy life, even with a very strong commitment to people who are not in your family, not in your community, people who have a need that you don’t necessarily see in front of you.