The answer is very simple really: because your parents thought it a good idea to have a child and now you are all caught up in the complexities of life and egged on by your inborn drive for survival you plod on and on and on...Forgot who it was from the participants in this discussion that said that the sure-shot solution is to live only for yourself but i quite agree with that; anything else is self-deception and denial of the self which is egotistic per se. But egotists, on the other hand, are very likely to fall victims to their penury: self-indulgence is VERY cash-intensive, believe you me! And for an egotist to be cowed in the position of a cash-poor individual is AGONIZING and this observation comes from personal experience, mind you.