Ego

This is more of a continuation of the previous piece. There is no reason that there was such a time gap between the two.
Once both of us, I mean the person I was talking to and me, were done on the fact of being alone in this world, we moved on to another topic. This has been one of my favorite topics for a long time.
We began talking about the ego.
Before I start, I would like to state that at no point in time I am trying to belittle anyone. What I say here is what I think, nothing else.
I know that anything I say here will be more of a CCP (to read as cut copy paste, a typical MBA jargon) from any of Ayn Rand’s books. Nevertheless, I shall try.
That person kept telling me that they were not feeling great about his or her own self.
When I asked how this was possible, the reply that I think I got was this, “I generally feel happy when I make others around me happy. In case there are situations wherein I end up making someone else feel low, I feel low.”
What struck me immediately and what I asked was this, how can one base their happiness on what others feel?
The reply though muted was not clear.
Ego is something that everyone has that makes him or her feel good by themselves. It is possible that there are two stimuli for such feel-good factors.
The first is that it comes from someone or something outside. This means that one feels good about him or her self based on events that happen with other people. The perfect example is during one of the conversations, I ended up hurting a person. I feel bad that I did that, regardless of the fact that what I said was the truth and it was necessary.
The second is when it comes from within. What people understand and know is what drives this stimulus. Carrying on the previous example, I know that I hurt my friend. However, since I know that what I said was the truth and it was necessary, I will not feel bad. Rather, I will feel good about my friendship with that person and myself because it lets me talk the truth and not feel bad about it.
Of these two, I would like to follow the second genre. The reason being, I am supposed to be a rational human being. I am supposed to think and understand what each happening means and signifies.
A rational person would realize that there is only one person who is responsible for their happiness, themselves. By placing others responsible for your happiness, you are taking away the meaning of the word ego. You are removing the “my” from “my ego”.
This is not to say that one cannot feel happy due to others. You can feel happy for them; you can even feel happy because of them. Ultimately, that happiness must be based on something that is inside you, even if it is because of others.

Happiness is mine, so is sadness.
I create them in my head, reasons aplenty.
You can make me happy; you can make me sad,
The fact is simple,
Happiness is mine, so is sadness.