What is life ?

Everywhere around you there is birth and death, the struggle for money, position, power, the unending process of what we call life;
and don't you sometimes wonder, even while you are very young, what it is all about?
You see, most of us want an answer, we want to be told what it is all about, so we pick up a political or religious book, or we ask somebody to tell us;
but no one can tell us, because life is not something which can be understood from a book, nor can its significance be gathered by following another, or through some form of prayer.
You and I must understand it for ourselves - which we can do only when we are fully alive, very alert, watchful, observant, taking interest in everything around us;
and then we shall discover what it is to be really happy.