# How to be Successful in Life?

### How to be Successful in Life

When I talked about the dimensions of success, I used the word dimension with an ulterior motive. I want to define success for you in a formal way. You see, an entity that has many dimensions is a space, similar to the three dimensional space we live in. When we have such a complex multi-dimensional space to define success in, we have to apply some good techniques from physics to do it right. Don’t worry, i am here to help.

Success is hard to define, but the lack of success seems obvious — no money, no family, no friends, no education, no wisdom, no health, no wealth etc. That situation is one dark point in this multi-dimensional success-space. Your station in life is another point in the success-space. How far away from the dark point your station is is truly the measure of your success in life. The distance from this zero point of failure is the so-called Cartesian distance. If you have special likes or dislikes for one particular dimension of success (like money, for instance), you can assign an appropriate weight to that dimension, which effectively makes the distance what they call a $\chi^2$ distance. Of course, it would be impossible to assign precise numerical values to all these abstract dimensions and distances. But this mode of thinking should give you a tool to analyze and understand successes and failures. It will tell you, for instance, why Bangladeshis score higher in happiness index than Americans. They just happen to have a different set of dimensions that they consider important.

The trick in achieving success in life lies in identifying the dimensions that are important to you personally. Don’t let yourself get influenced by others (unless, of course, pleasing others is one of your preferred dimensions). Once your own personal directions are identified, channel all your efforts along those dimensions. Just be sure that your dimensions are right for you both in terms of your deepest desires and your abilities. Choose wisely!