Modified Ethical Egoism

After reading Ayn Rand's "In Defense of Ethical Egoism" it became clear to me that although she does make a fairly compelling argument, in order to truly achieve happiness and flourishing one would have to make some alterations to her style of egoism. I agree with Rand that too often we deny ourselves what would give us pleasure because we believe that what is the correct moral action is doing whatever everyone else wants instead of considering our own wishes. I also agree with Rand that "By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man-every man-is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose" (535). However, with this statement, Rand sets up a contradiction. If everyone acts merely in their own interests, then not everyone truly be an end in themselves because others will exploit them and use them as a means to an end in order to further their own interests. Essentially egoism, at least the way that she is describing it here, would fall apart if everyone were to practice it in such a manner because it is more of an individualized philosophy than she is making it out to be. Not everyone can be an egoist or else the philosophy falls apart, due to the fact that if everyone is only concerned with what benefits them, then no one will be able to achieve what they want to achieve to the extent that they will be ultimately fulfilled. I also find it problematic that we are supposed to, in this philosophy, completely disregard other people and only focus on what will further our own interests. I think that ultimately not considering other people would cause us to lead a more solitary and unhappy life than one in which we take into account the other people surrounding us. I think instead of taking such a radical stance as Rand suggests, we should instead act with our happiness in view and include it as a deciding factor in our moral code, but not without considering how our actions will affect others as well.