If your sense of self depends on serving others, then your sense of self is connected to, and ultimately conflated with, others. This in turn likely means that they are connected to you. You lean on one another.
This is why you should watch children struggle with things for a long time, and why you should not feel bad when difficulties enter the lives of complacent people. Or your life, for that matter.
Trouble is wind for wings that are ready for it. Let’s call that a bon mot.