I get what you are saying and totally agree. However, now I am stuck between choosing between what is good for ME and what is good for OTHERS. What is more important? My life being good or leaving others in a better place when I'm gone? Should I just live for myself until I'm 45, than start giving back?
There is a school of thought called Vedanta that I learned about from reading Alan Watts. It holds that all is "oneness" or "connectedness" and that the lines that appear to separate ourselves from each other are merely illusions and that helping yourself is helping others and helping others is helping yourself.
At first read, this sounded like hippy dippy nonsense to me. But then I started seeing "practical" manifestations of this in my life over and over again.
For example, I did a bunch of Pro Bono web development for a non-profit because I liked the non-profit. Besides the good feeling I got from helping a worthy charity and the thanks and friendships I gained from the people who worked there, I also ended up getting three web consulting gigs.
I gave a friend some money to start a creative project and their level of happiness has increased. And that happiness level is contagious and I find myself feeling some of that happiness spill over onto me whenever I hang out with them.
And when I started eating right, exercising, and following my goals and dreams, I was happier and that happiness spilled over to all around me. And as I became more successful, it opened up economic opportunities for those around me to take part in my business and to partner with. And it inspired those around me to follow their dreams. And that's spilling over to the people around those who were helped by me in an outward circle.
In a very grounded way, I'm really starting to believe there is something to this connectedness idea.
> However, now I am stuck between choosing between what is good for ME and what is good for OTHERS. What is more important?
Question of the ages, that is. I tend toward contributing toward the general good as best I know how. But I came to that conclusion through a fair bit of contemplation, some selfish living (which still continues in degrees), and philosophical and religious thought. (And I'm still no Ghandi, I can play the part of "self-centered asshole" pretty well, and regularly.) In short, it's a journey you get to take all on your own, no one else will figure it out for you.
Keep in mind, too, that the two choices you laid out are not at odds with each other. As a personal example, I volunteer at an animal shelter. My wife and I walk homeless dogs, pick up their poop, and take some to training classes if it would make them more adoptable. For dogs that have been there a while, we'll take them on field trips to the park, maybe stop by Wendy's for a burger and fries. We'll each put in at least 100, sometimes over 200 hours/year there. We give the shelter arse loads of money (yea, high tech salaries!) We do it because we believe if we (society) have domesticated the animals, we have a responsibility to see that they are taken care of and treated humanely. Damned noble of us, eh? Except I find it to be a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with the mutts, teach them commands so that they're civilized members of society, go run around in the mud at the park, and ultimately see them get adopted. It ain't all selfless.
Dishing up food at a homeless shelter? Makes you feel good, right? That you're doing the "right" thing? It's still about you, because of how it makes you feel, or that you think that you are doing what's "right". Ultimately you should be removed entirely, and it's done because it's what the world needs right now. I'm still a long way from that ideal, but I keep trying. In the mean time at least some effort is expended toward making the world a little better, whatever the motivation may be.
Alas, you have to decide for yourself, but I can tell you my personal decision is to be as good a person to myself as I am to others, roughly in that order, with some compensation for personal privilege, perhaps, in the late-night fridge visits. That has improved things immensely in my life.
