BCAS Vice President CA Mihir Sheth’s Message for the Month of May 2022

Recently I had an interesting discussion with some of my close friends on the subject of success. Each individual was posed a question, “Do you think you are successful?” to which he had to answer candidly. Every person was given five minutes in which he had to briefly narrate whether he is successful in life and give reasons for or against. Each person tried to present a balanced picture of his success and failure. When it came to my turn I had to excuse myself saying this question was not easy to answer and it would require good amount of thinking to dissect my life. However, I promised that I will come back with a reply soon. After considerable thinking I came to the following conclusion. Not just about whether I am successful or not but rather what could be the parameters to measure success and how do we apply them to our life.

In my opinion success cannot be perceived as an attainment of the object. To do that would be a very narrow interpretation. Success is an ongoing pursuit and has more to do with the mindset of an individual. Parameters of success therefore have to be dynamic and not fixed. As a corollary, it would not be possible for anyone to state as a universal truth that person is successful or a failure. This is so because before each success perhaps there could have been a stage where he may have suffered heavy setbacks and regarded himself as a failure.

In the context of the above, what could be the deciding factor between success and failure? I feel you are successful until you have given up. Difference between success and failure is when you stop trying and accept yourself as a failure. Therefore success is a state of mind and not attainment of the object. It is this positive state of mind that makes you relook at the ways of doing things differently, keeps you constantly in pursuit and gives you hope that becomes ‘raison d’etre’ of your life. It gives you purpose in life, something to live for- thing that is your passion, something that is most dear to you. As long as you live with that passion and purpose you are successful. This could be your profession, pursuit of innovation, desire to contribute by social work or merely an intention to become better individual by setting some self- improvement goals. Successful person is not one who has attained an object of his fancy but the one who continuously recalibrates his goals to finally find the purpose of his life and devote his rest of the life to achieve that. Success is in continuing the journey and not reaching the temporary destination.

Question may come to the mind that “isn’t pursuing the purpose of the life not the same as pursuing some kind of object”? The answer is NO. There is a difference between the two. When you pursue your fancied object for success it becomes transitory and transactional. Who you are- whether success or failure becomes subject to its attainment or non-attainment. When you pursue the purpose of your life, your success becomes a journey in pursuit, where you enjoy success of little milestones you may have set. When you are driven by passion and hope, you always feel that success is a continuous pursuit not the end of the journey.

How does one find the purpose of life to which he can relate himself the best? Well, simple exercises can help.

1. Visualization- Life’s purpose has strange way of finding you. It keeps coming in your dreams, keeps haunting you to take up some related activity and even create an opportunity to expose you towards it. All that you need to develop is open mind and strong antennas to pick up that signal and keep visualizing it.
2. Conviction- You must have total conviction about your journey. You must believe that you are chosen by God to fulfill that mission. The purpose that is not only good for you but for mankind and you will eventually find it.
3. Overcome Fear of Failure- When you equate finding the purpose of your life to an object, you start fearing the failure. You forget that this is not about non-attainment of an object but about the journey for finding the purpose. You must remove the fear of the future and just be yourself. A seeker in search of purpose of his life is always rewarded by the God in different ways, even in ways not in one’s sight. So the key is to pursue the journey without any fear with conviction on the visualized path.

Judging myself by the measures above I told my friends later that I have not stopped my journey yet and I consider myself successful merely on that count.

Are you a seeker of the purpose of your life or a self- assumed success or failure on the count of attainment of objects? Are you on a continuous journey or a tired traveler winding up the journey? Think about it. It could be an interesting revelation.