Every individual tries to lead his life in his or her own way and try to find happiness and contentment from his way of living. But unless and until we find the answer for, “Why are we living this life?” our living is completely mechanical with no sense of liveliness. But once we find the answer, there comes a steadiness in our life. We can then experience the art of living and will be able to taste the true sweetness of life.
Let us try to understand the above fact with the help of following example:

Once a family was very frustrated by the nuisance of rats in their house. They made every possible effort to remove them but all were in vain. The nuisance was increasing day by day. As a last attempt, they brought a cat in their house. The cat belonged to their area. The cat stayed in the house for the whole day but for no use. Not a single rat was decreased. So, on the next day, the family brought another cat from the nearby area. To their astonishment, the cat, instead of killing the rats, was playing with them. Finally the family brought the third cat from their relatives staying in the nearby village. The cat did a creditable job. Within few hours, the rat population came to an end. This solved the problem.
The family then thought that why the cats of our own village proved incapable of doing their job. To find the reason they decided to arrange a counseling session of the three cats. During the session each cat gave a very interesting excuse.

First cat replied: “The cats were cleverer than me, so I was not able to catch them”.

Second cat replied: “I am strict follower of non-violence. So killing the rats and creating violence was against my principles.”

Third cat replied: “According to me, work is worship. I was hungry so I was able to do the job successfully.”

The moral of the story is that we should be passionate and devoted towards our job.

A passionate and responsible person will have the following qualities:

a) The individual is completely conscious about his responsibility.

b) He will take every possible step to discharge his duties.

c) He will not offer any excuse for not doing his job.

d) He will also not utter a single word about the pain and trouble he has taken while performing his duties.

e) Above all he will not expect any credit or award for the work he has done.

An irresponsible and impassionate person will have the following qualities:

a) He will always try to abdicate responsibility.

b) He has the tendency of shrinking and dodging.

c) Such person always tries to get the support of some or the other reason to avoid his duties.

d) Without exhibiting his laziness, he skillfully takes a steady footstep and run away from his responsibility.

A student, who is unable to get the expected success in the examination, will put forward a very fixed and uniform set of reasons like:

a) The college did not arrange the classes for every subject.

b) Most of the questions asked in the exam were out of syllabus.

c) The papers are not checked properly.

d) The university or board has a secret plan to keep the results limited.

But if the students have studied carefully and with strong determination, right from the beginning, then they would have been definitely successful.

Any individual or family should initially decide:

a) What they want to do?

b) What is their goal which they want to achieve?

Once it is decided, they will automatically follow the steps according to their decision. For example: 1) A housewife cannot cook delicious food just by reading recipe books.

2) A child cannot be a player just by reading sports magazine.

In both the above cases, the concerned persons have to take practical efforts in their respective fields to achieve their goal. Instead of doing any act blindly, if we try to give it a practical approach, then it is possible to achieve the target in lesser time and with lesser effort.

While achieving goal, we should ask ourselves that, “Do we really have the passion and devotion for our goal?” If the answer comes ‘yes’, then:

1) We will give top priority to our efforts towards our goal.

2) We will bypass all the baits that impede our efforts.

3) We will completely try to neglect the minor things which will distract us from our mission to achieve the goal.

But all these efforts are useless unless we do not understand the importance of achieving the target.

In life, if we want to rule the accomplishment, gain happiness and respect, then only we can decide how to get them. We do not need to get the happiness from anywhere, it is present within us. We just have to find it and preserve it.