Cats don't have to do homework. They can sleep whenever they want. And when they break the house rules, the punishment is light, if at all existent. In other words, it's just the opposite of the life that I live.

On the surface, I'm jealous of cats (and other animals) for this reason. They don't have anywhere near the responsibility that we do, and they seem just as happy for it on the outside. We have pets to comfort us, but are they comfortable themselves?

It makes me wonder if I would give up my life of schedules and deadlines and responsibility to become something that doesn’t have to worry about the weakening economy or global warming or choosing a president or homework. As far as I can tell, cats don’t have much of a conscience, and they probably don’t think much about where they’ll go to college.

Yet there are obvious problems with dropping out of school or going on a homework strike. It might make us happy in the short term, but if everyone did that, society as we know it would probably fall apart. What separates humans from cats and dogs (besides our opposable thumbs), is the fact that we have the power to think, and make decisions.

House pets may seem happy — at least they seem so when they start purring and treading — but do they really experience emotion? When you think about it, just because we get pleasure out of watching a cat chase a fake mouse across the floor, the cat chasing it may not.

And in the end, an animal is probably happy just about as often as we are, and sad just about as often as well. They’re almost like children that never grow up, and when we were (young) children, we felt about the same way.

I suppose it’s all just a part of growing older. It’s a cliché, I suppose, but it really does take more responsibility as one gets older. And I suppose we can see what my cat cannot — that our effort will pay off in the long run. Homework seems tough now and may not seem worth it as it's being done, but it will only help later.