How Am I Doing?

As human beings we need much more than the physical necessities. We mostly compare ourselves with other human beings. Our state of happiness and satisfaction is primarily determined by how we think we are doing relative to others. Till almost middle of last century, most human beings were limited to within walking distance of their homes. The population that we needed to keep tab on were small ( less than 100 , except for in few large cities) . Hence it was relatively easy to...
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As human beings we need much more than the physical necessities. We mostly compare ourselves with other human beings. Our state of happiness and satisfaction is primarily determined by how we think we are doing relative to others. Till almost middle of last century, most human beings were limited to within walking distance of their homes. The population that we needed to keep tab on were small ( less than 100 , except for in few large cities) . Hence it was relatively easy to determine how we are doing just by looking around and over hearing gossips .

With the advent of modern transportation our peripatetic range has been expanded to the whole world. It Is now possible to travel to any point on earth in commercial vehicles within a day. As a result the sphere of our comparison has also widened to include the country we live in, if not the world. When dealing with such a large population it is impossible to find out how we are doing without statistical and quantitative measures. This implies gathering, analyzing and disseminating statistical data on various aspects of a population. Quantitative comparison also offers better precision. For example rather than just to say, we are doing ok, we can be more specific by saying we are in the top 25% of wealth.

This book provides a subset of such measures in 40 odd compact easily digestible chapters. Each chapter has relevant charts and tables for additional details.