Yes, read flatly this advice is borderline egoism, but it can be read in a more useful way if some ideas are added. You shall not want to do something that you

Yes, read flatly this advice is borderline egoism, but it can be read in a more useful way if some ideas are added. You shall not want to do something that you would not want others to be allowed to do. (Eg: you cannot want to kill people for fun in the streets. That's a Kantian principle, IIRC) You should better have a long-term perspective on what you want to do, and why. If you are tooth ache, your primary self probably do not "want" to go to dentist, but your reasonable self tells you that you have to do it, even without any immediate wishes to go. Even if you were Xi Jinping or Obama, you cannot control everything you wish to control. The stoistic advice works here: you should do all you can to prepare yourself a nice cruise (or life), but once on the boat, you can't help if you are caught in a storm and should better shut up than complain. An example is marriage+kids: you should probably jump carefully on this little boat, but once in, better eat your hat than jump overboard at the first annoyance.