TPO 5 - Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? People today spend too much time on personal enjoyment-doing things they like to do rather than doing things they should do. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. v.1

In today’s progressive world we live, with the hectic life every one of us is experiencing, human beings’ demands and desires have changed drastically. While some people stand to reason that all of us have been created to accomplish one main goal-which is happiness-, others stand at the other side of this continuum and believe that life is not meant to be for mere pleasure. Personally speaking, I strongly hold the view that in today’s revolutionary era, comparing to actions that should be done, people consider their personal gratification as the main priority, the reasons of which will be vindicated in the following paragraphs. The first exquisite point to be mentioned is that having experienced the hustle and bustle of life, nowadays people are looking for a means of escape in order to feel a sense of relief. Today’s new generation assume that life is unbelievably short and most of them stigmatize individuals torturing themselves to gain more money at the expense of ignoring their joy and happiness. Having interviewed various groups of people with a diverse age range, Thomas Adam, a sociologist at Arizona State University, has found that both the old and the new generations unanimously agreed upon this very fact that humankind has been created to be filled with happiness and nothing is better than enjoying one’s life in the way that it is meant to be. Although people at every corner of the globe are experiencing economical pressure which makes them work twice as harder as they had before, most of them turn a blind eye to this unforgiving situation and as a result they prefer to have a life fused with pleasure and ecstasy. The second equally significant reason which is worth mentioning is the idea that with the advancement in technology and equipment facilitating our lives, earning money is not as hard as it used to be. If there were a time machine through which we could observe centuries ago, it would be apparent that easy money was not paid to anyone at that time. However, with the genesis of technology and the internet particularly, people can earn money easily and effortlessly with no special training or expertise; the so-called e-marketing phenomenon, for instance, in which there is no toil and hardship. This is the reason that people’s desire and needs have dramatically changed compared to people from the preceding descendants for whom a number of other priorities than pleasure and joy existed. To put it in a more vivid picture, when my grandfather was told that I spent more than half of my savings on a simple trip to Russia in order to participate and watch the World Cup competition, he astoundingly asked me the reason and when I said, “I just wanted to have fun”, he became even more surprised. It sounds as though people in this era are more inclined to do things for their own pleasure, rather than things they should be doing. To conclude, considering the above-mentioned reasons, people assume life is not about doing things contrary to what one really wants. They spend more time on their personal enjoyment activities rather than their obligatory actions, because of the changes emerged not only at people’s lifestyle but also the changes in the way people earn their subsistence.