How should we perform our duties?
We should perform our duties with honesty and sincerity. God has created man, and has given him duty to perform. A man does duty to his fellow men. In doing so he does duty to God. To serve man is, indeed, to serve God. To perform a duty is, surely, to do something sacred, something holy. The very sense of duty elevates the character and ennobles the soul.
Duties of Parents and Children: Duty first begins at home. The parents responsibly discharge their duties to their children. They will bring up their children in a measured code of discipline. They will feed them and provide them clothes and shelter. They make for arrangement for the academic and extra-academic education. They shower the warmth of love and take care of their child in every possible manner. In other words, they will contribute to the upbringing of their children in a proper manner.
These children, when grown up, will take every care of their parents. They will serve them with deep devotion in their old age. They have also duty to their brothers, sisters and other members of the family.
Duties of Students and Teachers: Then comes the duty to the teachers. It is the bounden duty of the students to be respectful to their teachers.
The teachers too are to earn respect by displaying their virtues and worth. They can never force the students to obedience.
Our duty to the nation: Last of all comes the duty to the nation. It is the imperative duty of all to stand united at the event of a public calamity. One should remain prepared to shed the last drop of blood in defending the prestige and integrity of the nation.
The joy of being dutiful: The performance of duty is not always divorced from joy associated with it; duty and joy often co-exist. An honest student will ultimately unearth an inexhaustible fun or beauty in the pursuit. ‘A thing of beauty’, says Keats ‘is a joy forever’. It is the duty of the rich to help the poor; and the rich get an unmixed joy in the task.
Naturally, we have no reason to approve of Ellen S. Hooper’s lines:
‘I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty; I woke, and found that life was Duty’.
