What did you personally have to do with the event? Virtually nothing ever happens to you that you didn't contribute to with one or more actions; so, what did you contribute to the event that had you smiling and feeling good? Since we know you can identify your contribution, the question is, will you identify that contribution?

As it is with every single construction of every single idea, invention, book, or item sold, the absolute fastest way to get anywhere is to work backwards and live forwards. Double and triple your results in any given field of human endeavor in as little as sixty seconds. From tossing paper balls into a garbage can from across the room to generating love, money, music, or anything else you are willing to envision, the only limit is the limit that the face in your upstairs mirror sets and accepts.

Using a map? That's working backwards and living forwards. You start by examining where you want to end up, and then use written or printed instructions on how to get there from where you are now. If you ever discover an exception to this rule of working backwards and living forwards, please advise the world immediately. We will shower you with Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, acclaim, accolade, and piles of money. Trial and error is wonderful for those who like to go the long way in order to take longer to accomplish less, mathematically and chronologically speaking. Working backwards and living forwards is faster, and more fun.

Even that simplest of pleasures, satisfaction, fits the rule Let's work backwards, so that we can enjoy it forwards, in at least one or two larger doses in this very 24-hour period, s'aright?

Start by looking at the last six letters of the word "satisfaction." Even you aren't likely to argue against the reality that when we want that physical and emotional feeling of satisfaction, we obviously must take action, agreed? Really great things don't happen until we contribute, right?

Great. Now, look at the first five letters: s-a-t-i-s. That's one of our 1200 Latin roots. It means "enough" or "sufficient."

Finally, look right in the middle of the word: "fac" from the Latin "facere" which means to create from pieces, such as in manufacture, or factory.

So let's just jump right in to the middle. When we create sufficient action, we get a feeling generated by having created sufficient action. The word we use is, ah, you guessed it, you genius, satisfaction.

Once you actually acknowledge to yourself that Life is going to deliver only the rarest moment of true satisfaction except for those occasions where you personally increase its occurrence, your mind is better attuned to look for opportunities to make those moments happen. Even the simplest pleasures come from something that you did to encourage it.

Reading two Robert Crais novels this weekend, both with a protagonist who has a cat, I was lamenting my own inability to keep pets at this time. Less than an hour ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find a cat quietly, contentedly sitting on my living room floor. In Brooklyn, NY, some of our neighborhood's homeowners occasionally feed stray cats to encourage their presence. This keeps the rodent population at a lower level than in other neighborhoods.

Although the four cats that I've seen now and then near my house have never once let me approach them, this unexpected-yet-welcome visitor allowed me to feed and even tickle him a bit. Such pleasure did it bring me to solemnly hand my new friend pieces of chicken one at a time, which he plucked from my fingers with careful consideration, and even a measure of feline dignity. When I went to the kitchen for more, I returned to find he'd gone into my bedroom and plopped right under my bed. I was astonished, and pleased� and yes, satisfied.

Refusing any more of the chicken I offered, he let me rub his head a bit, and then calmly walked over to the window and jumped out.

While it would be easier to attribute his visit to serendipity or coincidence, memories of occasionally bringing food out into the driveway and speaking to this particular cat in a non-threatening tone of voice is what we could more accurately attribute as the reason for the feline trust extended to me this evening. Once again, Newton's Third law of physics paid off nicely, because there was no small

Nothing ever happens by accident, and the wise man and woman know that there are few coincidences in life. Where there is a cause, you will find an effect, and when you examine an effect, more often than not you'll identify the cause.

Don't be bashful about making things happen. Work backwards, live forwards, by determining what would most satisfy you, and then identifying the last step before achievement� then the step before that� and the one before that. From quality time with loved ones, developing artistic or vocational skills, there's no human effort immune from satisfaction when we pursue it intentionally and deliberately, with a plan for doing so. Before you fully realize it, you'll be experiencing more and larger doses of that wonderful feeling we call satisfaction.

Work backwards; live forwards. It's worked for all our great philosophers, inventors, and medical researchers. In fact, it's already worked for you. Today, you're urged to use it more, and with planning aforethought rather than waiting for it to come to you. Watch what happens.