Doesn't affect your main point, but this is SO not what the Buddhists were talking about (at least Indian and TIbetan Buddhism, which are the strains with which I have passing familiarity).

The Buddhist position on this stuff would be, "stop maximising a personal utility function; the fact that you feel you have to do that will lead you to bigger problems later on. [Why that is so is an involved discussion and I'll get it horribly wrong if I try.] Instead, learn to let go of the whole dichotomy of me and not-me, regard your consciousness being a local* phenomenon as a transient accident, and the you'll attain Nirvana - you'll get outside the cycle of birth and death which is the only reason your consciousness has this local manifestation." (Yes, I see the obvious mistake here, but think of the whole identifying the listener as someone separate as a stepping stone to a point where that becomes superfluous.)

(And all three keys are related. I imagine that if you fill in the thoughts about why they're related, you'll get as good an understanding as I, so I won't go into it.)

*Local in the sense of 'in your body,' not the way it's used in physics.