Question

I wanted to ask about self-awareness and self-fulfillment.
As someone who has a certain degree of awareness of the soul and its needs,
how can I know that my actions are not an escape from myself? For example, if I invest in someone else, and sometimes I can find myself completely changing plans for a friend, or sacrificing significant things—does that count as escape, as a lack of experiencing the inner self?
[When I ask myself why I really behave this way, the answer is usually that I enjoy it when my friend enjoys himself. I should note that, thank God, I am not in a social situation that requires these things of me; I do them purely out of my own desire.]
Thank you very much.