The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. | The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand

Modern culture presents you with a false choice. You can be:

• a good guy and live for others,
• or a bad one and take whatever you can with violence and lies.

Both these alternatives will bring you unhappiness. If you sacrifice yourself to someone else needs, you’re just a slave. If you’re the taker, you become a parasite. And a life of violence and lies is a miserable one.

What about the moderate option? What if you put others first, but not too much? Well, then you condemn yourself to a constant state of hypocrisy and mental stress.

This is a false choice because there’s another alternative.

You can be a rational selfish person.

Put your life and individual happiness as your goal, and work towards it with selfish decisions.

Don’t sacrifice yourself. Don’t steal from anybody. Just trade your resources with others, based on your rational priorities.