I am very surprised that I am writing a preface to the third edition for this book. I always treated books as living beings with their own lives. And the life of this “Journey of Success” book has been very interesting to say the least. It did wonderfully well, both commercially and in terms of usefulness for the intended readers. It sold very well and we had to reprint the book twice within a short span and received too many positive comments as you can see in the facebook page of this book since the time of its inception. It did so well that I started working on the second edition, only two months after the first edition was published. For a book that is not available online and in pre-amazon era, all these sales happened from actual physical bookstores only in Nepal, and mainly in Kathmandu. But then, I moved to Japan and the work for the second edition was postponed. I got information from Nepal that the book had already been sold out, so I started working on the second edition again but then something very ridiculous (I don’t know if that’s the proper word but an enormous paradigm shift) happened in my life and I lost all interest in publishing a second edition (lost interest in most worldly affairs, actually).  I just kept silent and never bothered working on a second edition, despite many pressures from family, friends, readers and publishers, and of course, the lure of earning some more money. I told you all of this in the preface to the second edition. But now here we are with the third edition which I am going to post on my website with each chapter in the form of a blog post. Why am I bothering myself with the third edition? There are plenty of minor, but three major reasons.

              First, although I may or may not believe in material success, I realized that several people still do and this book continued to serve special function to them. I believe the book should continue to exist in some form so that those who need it can access it. Think of it this way. Let’s say there is a football (soccer) match. It’s a friendly football match, and the results of the match actually don’t matter at all. But, the organizers haven’t told the players that it is a friendly match. The players are giving their heart, mind, and soul to win the match. Let’s say I am a good football coach who knows how to win matches. Although I am in the audience and am aware that it’s a friendly match, the players want to know every strategy to win. So, shouldn’t I teach the players how to win? While they are playing, the players do want to win. Why tell them that there is no point in winning? I’d rather tell them how to win. That’s the underlying philosophy behind publishing this book again now. To make it widely accessible, I thought putting the chapters online as blogs would be the best way forward.

              Second, I guess even if the players somewhat learned that it was a friendly and the results didn’t matter, they might still want to win. It is boring to just say that it’s a friendly and be on the pitch but not play to your fullest. Who cares whether it’s a friendly or a world cup final. If you are on the pitch, might as well do your best. Might as well be remembered as someone who scored a hat-trick instead of someone who missed a penalty, although it’s a friendly. To give you another example, even if you knew you were dreaming and dreams aren’t real, might as well dream about a romantic time with a hot date rather than dream about working twelve hours a day in front of a computer eating cup noodles for lunch.

To understand that money doesn’t buy happiness, you should at least make money and try to buy it. Thus, I believe to give up on material success in the pursuit of higher goals, you should first at least achieve those material successes. How can you give up something that you never had in the first place?

-BG

One more thing I want you all to know is that people can change. In fact, people change all the time- and not just biologically. I guess I have a negligible percent of the same cells in my body now as I did when I wrote the first edition of the book. But even beyond biology, people change in terms of their personalities, emotions, thoughts, and consciousness. In short, I am not the Bishal Gyawali that you all knew of. I, the present one, have the same name and face and some personality traits of the same old Bishal Gyawali, but I am a completely different being now. What that means for you readers is that please keep in mind that I first wrote this book in 2012 when materialistic success was of prime concern to me. My life revolved around being successful.  Not today. I don’t covet success, richness and fame the same way as I used to. However, I have achieved success in the past in terms of how society defines success. I guess, you can also say that I continue to achieve success even today in the traditional sense even after I stopped caring about it (what a playful universe!). I am a highly respected doctor, professor, and researcher in my field. For someone who was born in Lumbini, Nepal and did medical school in Nepal, I’d consider myself to be successful based on the traditional metrics of name, fame, money, impact, and world-wide recognition. So maybe I can say a word or two about these stuffs. The difference, however, is that for me success is not a destination but a side effect (albeit a pleasant one!) of the paradigm shift. But this paradigm shift is not what many people want. What they want is success, which is what this book helps with. The other aspects, if you are interested, I will discuss under the spirituality page in the website.

Third, although these metrics of success such as wealth, name, fame, etc. don’t matter to me now, they did matter heavily in the past. Only after you have achieved these for yourself, can you understand that these things don’t matter. It’s difficult-almost impossible- to be philosophical about the purpose of life on an empty stomach. When you don’t have money to buy an iphone, it’s natural to believe that getting an iphone will make you happy. To understand that money doesn’t buy happiness, you should at least make money and try to buy it. Thus, I believe to give up on material success in the pursuit of higher goals, you should first at least achieve those material successes. How can you give up something that you never had in the first place?

There are other small reasons why this mischievous universe compelled me to publish this new edition again. If you are reading this, this is the universe’s way of playing games with us. Maybe there will be only one person in the world who subscribes to these chapters and reads them. Maybe there will be none and this will be forever screaming into the void. Who knows? Who cares, anyway.

If you have read the previous 2012 and 2015 versions of this book, you may ask, what’s new in the new edition? The fundamental checklist part will not change much, although I will sprinkle some of my new insights into each. Because the formulae of success don’t change. The same formulae are still valid. The intended audience is also the same: the youth, specially those between high-school to graduate school.

I hope reading this book will help you achieve your dreams, whatever they might be. Everybody should be successful to realize that success alone does not fulfill their lives.

Thanks, as always.

BG

Dedicated to the two stars of my life who keep me humane and grounded, and prove to me that a minute of flesh and bones life is better than years of solitude and empty philosophy.

Bibhika and Bedanta