The pursuit of the self 

What percentage of your day is spent deliberately caring for or trying to bring pleasure to someone else? What effect is this likely to have on you as a person if it is little? If it is a lot? What are the likely long term effects of a society that encourages us to spend more and more of our time seeking pleasure and fulfillment for ourselves and easily getting exactly what we want (or some version of it) with little investment in or need for give and take with other people to get it? Now that we can finally settle down and focus on ourselves, will we finally be better and happier and more superior to previous generations? Or do we merely stand upon their accomplishments and relax in their ease and benefit, to our own gradual decline and detriment. In many previous civilizations, the knowledge and energy and capabilities of the past were lost because the people lost internally what was needed to produce or sustain them.