system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Struggling to give life meaning

30yo male here.

Struggling to find my meaning of life. I find Stoicism very appealing but mostly to deal with personal things. Meanwhile I'm floating to and fro, from feeling a deep sense of civic duty and desire to be active in politics to hedonism or nihilism.

I'm hoping to find a balance and to find an answer (that is satisfying to me, at least) as to how much I should/can care about 'the world' while maximalizing my own happiness. Or perhaps personal happiness isn't paramount relative to the good I can do for others. Or when speaking of happiness, what is the right balance between short-term gratification and making life less pleasurable in the short term in return for (potential) deeper happiness down the line?

At any rate, I'm sure these are questions all of you have had and seem like babby's first ponderings to people who actually occupy themselves with philosophy. So any suggestions of reading material that could give me more insights or understanding of the problems I deal with, or writings that have spoken about this topic, will be appreciated.

**Edit:** I've gotten a good amount of comments with a lot of effort behind them. A number of you have also messaged me. I'm going to take my time reading all of it on the few moments I have 'me'-time. You guys are great, I really appreciate it.
gpt
For a philosophically informed self-help take on such matters of finding a balance, you can take a look at Edith Hall's Aristotle's Way. Not a work of philosophy, but it's written by a respectable classicist who appears to love Aristotle. 

For Aristotle, virtuous activity includes, among other things, finding the right balance between extremes (which are vices). The more you develop these excellences of character (which is what virtues are) by practice,  the more habitual they become, and the happier you get, or, perhaps, the more your life becomes a life worth living. And human beings are political animals who can flourish only in a good society, so there is no fundamental conflict between your well-being and the good for the society. So in this sort of account, there is no fundamental conflict between engaging in political activity oriented towards the freedom of society as a whole and your individual happiness. The good and happy life requires political engagement and solidarity, but of course, in a balanced way.

If you want to pursue your interest in  stoicism, you could take a look at Pierre Hadot's works, The Inner Citadel, and Philosophy as a Way of Life. 

If you want something less philosophical, and more popular self-help, Massimo Pigliucci is a philosopher of science who has a recently developed interest in trying to apply stoicism to modern everyday life. He has books, blogs, videos. Just keep in mind he is not a scholar in that area.