Human beings' main goal in life is to be happy and as Freud stated they ‘strive after happiness’, which could also be interpreted as ‘looking for pleasure’. Although some think that striving for happiness makes the world a bearable place, some strongly oppose to this idea. The ones who oppose see human beings as self-oriented, mean creatures and they claim that the world would be a better place if human beings were not so obsessed with the idea of happiness. Do you think that striving for happiness makes the world worse? What is your opinion on this?

Human nature is quite complex. Although individuals have common traits, each individual reacts to issues differently due to having different family backgrounds, education, motivation and primary goals. However, one aspect never changes: it is human beings' pursuit of happiness and their priority to be happy. Although this might seem as something quite motivating in life by some philosophers, it's seen as the cause of unrest and bitter unhappiness in the world by many. I agree with those supporting the idea that striving after happiness causes many issues since people have started to become increasingly selfish and greedy which has turned the world into a desperate place. The pursuit of happiness makes people selfish because they intend to be happy at all times regardless of the conditions around them. Since they are so self-oriented, they don't pay attention to what others experience or whether those people around them are suffering or not. There are many people who just aim at being happy, getting pleasure out of everything and ignoring how others feel. For example, many people on social media upload posts showing how happy they are and constantly share their selfies depicting their 'happy moments' while they know that some others around them are suffering due to health or personal issues. Such actions prove that human beings are highly selfish and pretentious. Focusing on their own happiness prevents them from seeing how others feel and how they can be of help to them. Another reason why the obsession with happiness causes selfishness is the fact that people are so insensitive that in spite of all those wars, conflicts and poverty they just think of themselves and prioritize their own happiness over all the other things. This is quite interesting because it shows human beings' immunity to terrible problems in the world. For example, currently there are wars almost everywhere, but despite these many people continue striving for their individual happiness and ignore how many people are dying or suffering each and every day. This is very much like a scene where there is a traffic accident and people passing by take selfies instead of rescuing the injured ones. They only think about how many 'likes' they would get on social media. As a result, people’s striving for happiness hinders them from bettering the world at an individual and societal level. In addition to being selfish, people's obsession with personal happiness leads to greed. Human beings are the only creatures who keep wanting more and more to own. In other words, they are never satisfied with what they have and end up looking for more. This could be exemplified in many ways in our lives. Rather than focusing on what we have and how lucky we are, we tend to focus on what is missing and how much more we can own. For instance, instead of focusing on how many clothes we have, we always want to have trendier clothes whereas some unfortunate people in the world do not even have a t-shirt and a pair of jeans to wear or there are thousands of kids who do not even have a pair of socks. If people realized that happiness does not depend on material things, they would definitely start valuing real happiness and would become more aware of others' feelings and needs. Imagine how many people would become happy if they were supported and cared for by others around them. The world would be a very different place.