Everything you want in life has a price connected to it. There's a price to pay if you want to make things better, a price to pay just of leaving thi… - Harry Browne

A free person doesn't try to remake the world of his friends or his family. He merely appraises every situation by the simple standard: Is this what I want for myself? If it isn't, he looks elsewhere. If it is, he relaxes and enjoys it — without the problems most other people take for granted.

The unselfishness trap is the belief that you must put the happiness of others ahead of your own. Unselfishness is a very popular ideal, one that's been honored throughout recorded history. Wherever you turn, you find encouragement to put the happiness of others ahead of your own — to do what's best for the world, not yourself. If the ideal is sound, there must be something unworthy in seeking to live your life as you want to live it.

I call this The Dictator Syndrome. You see suffering or danger, and in your imagination you see a government program eliminating it. But in the real world the program would operate as you expect only if you were an absolute dictator — having at your disposal all the government's power to compel everyone to do things your way.