No, it’s not happiness. That only ensures when the goal is achieved. Your first responsibility in life is to be useful. But first to yourself. And then to others. One doesn’t work without the other. It’s a great paradox of life. But it can change your life. And your best life depends on it. You cannot pour from an empty cup.

That’s why becoming a person of value is vital.

This is my law and principle of usefulness.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson.

But it pays to start from value.

I like what Einstein said, “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives.”

The safety briefing on every airplane you have ever boarded says secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others. It applies to life too. You see, physics and biology demand sequence. If you pass out from a low level of oxygen while fumbling to help the passenger next to you, you have just doubled the emergency.

You are a system.

And like any complex system, you require inputs, maintenance, and organic integrity before you can create outputs that matter.

As Naval Ravikant notes, “You have to be smart enough to know what you want, strong enough to refuse what you don’t want, and wise enough to know how to save yourself.”

All of this is a process that gets you to becoming a person of value.

Self-preservation is an act of logistical preparation. If you don’t make yourself useful to yourself, by improving your mind, mastering your skill, and protecting your energy, you arrive to be useful empty-handed.

I call it the law of maximum leverage.

The care you owe yourself is the precondition for your usefulness. Build your competence. Do the inner work. If your health is a wreck, your finances are leaking, and your mind is without the necessary knowledge, your attempt to fix anyone or to be useful is just a distraction from fixing yourself. Only after you complete the first half of the principle of usefulness can you extend your value. Once you generate more energy, clarity, and capability than you consume, you are ready to be useful. That surplus is your gift to the world as your great work or service to the people you love. You cannot make a difference until you have built the right system to do it. Secure your mask. Build your foundation.

And be a person of value.

Your life is your first responsibility, not your only responsibility.

More on doing life right

→ History’s Most Brilliant Women Were Obsessed With These Habits

→ These 3 Intelligence Traps Are Destroying Your Ability to Think Clearly

→ As Long as You’re Alive, All Defeat is Psychological

Go well.

Thomas Oppong

This is your only goal in life was originally published in Personal Growth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.