Try to be multi-dimensional.

I looked up "dimension" in the Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary and decided on definition 2d: "one of the elements or factors making up a complete personality or entity". We are all made up of different dimensions -- it's who we are and how we view the world. But it's up to us how many dimensions we have, how many dimensions define us in the end.



Dimension # 1 is probably the family we're born into. We all share this, and there's no escaping it. We can choose to turn our backs on our families as we grow older, as some of us do, but who bore us and who else they bore are primal factors in who we turn out to be.



I would say that Dimension #2 is the friends we make, beginning in childhood. We'll make more as we get older, but they'll always be this same dimension, this same intrinsic part of ourselves.



Dimension #3 is work. Unless we're born into wealth (see #1), we all have to work sooner or later. Some of us are lucky enough to land a job we like and may even become obsessed with it, while others have to labor at something they hate just to make a living. The rest of us accept the inevitability of whatever job we end up with and make the best of it; it doesn't kill us, but we're happy to leave it when something else comes up or when we can finally retire.



Those are the basic dimensions of our lives: family, friends, work. We might add others, such as education, but that's usually over in a certain numbers of years and isn't likely to be as ongoing a concern as we go through life -- although its ramifications may well affect the other dimensions: not just what kind of job we get but also the next two dimensions we'll consider.


Where we start to get interesting is when we go beyond those categories and begin to explore the world, when we enter new dimensions.



The first, and most important, of these -- we'll call it the 4th dimension -- is who we choose to be with, once we're sexually aware.

I would say it's who we marry, but gay people aren't generally allowed to marry, so I have to include them as they experience the same urges to partner-up as straights do. So let's say that the 4th dimension is who you choose as a partner. And part of that is whether you have kids, whether you start a family, either your own or adopted. Marriage/partnership and family is a package, so I lump it all into this 4th dimension.



Okay, so now you're born into a family, you have friends, a job you may or may not like, and you're linked with someone you like a lot, maybe even love, and you've decided to have kids or not. What next?



The 5th dimension -- can't you see it coming? -- is to fly above all that and realize your OWN ambitions. (Remember that song about flying high in a balloon? Of course you do.) What is it that YOU are interested in, outside your family and your job?



It may be sports, or art, or writing, or the stock market, or -- hey, even ballooning. The fifth dimension, as the song implies, is where/when you start to soar. It's what makes you uniquely you. It's likely why your spouse fell in love with you. It's what gives you pleasure when nothing else does. It's why you were put on this earth. Often, the reason you work -- besides putting food on the table, paying rent, etc. -- is to allow you to pursue your real interests.



Financial people would call it having a "diversified portfolio", meaning that all your assets aren't locked into one stock or fund. It means that your self-worth isn't defined solely by who you are as a (1) child or (2) friend or (3) worker or (4) husband/wife/partner/parent. You're all that, but you're more.



This isn't to say that some of the dimensions may not overlap: you may find that your work and your 5th dimension are the same, if you're fortunate enough to get paid for what you love to do.

It may turn out that your birth family loves your chosen spouse -- that's really lucky -- or that your husband or wife turns out to be your best friend, or that your children become your 5th dimension: your life's project, your obsession.



But, for most of us, it's more confusing and more complicated. We have to choose, constantly, between and among conflicting interests and loyalties: whether to attend a yoga class or go to a daughter's softball game, whether to work late instead of attending the play that our spouse dearly wants to see (part of his or her 5th dimension), whether to succumb to the temptations of a co-worker and risk wrecking our marriage or stay faithful and be bored, whether to . . . you get the picture. Choices. Dilemmas.

If you stay single, then you can indulge your own hobbies and personal pursuits to a much greater extent -- but then you've eliminated that 4th dimension: choosing a partner and maybe starting a family. You may find yourself, in middle age, still having Thanksgiving dinner at your parents' house -- just you and them because your siblings, if you have any, are busy with their own families halfway across the country. And you may end up alone at the end of your life.

Something similar can happen if you become obsessed with work or with one of your interests and neglect other important parts of your life -- e.g., your family. It's a difficult juggling act, but the more balls you can keep in the air at the same time, the richer your life is going to be. In other words, the more opportunities you give yourself -- the more dimensions you make available -- the less likely you are to let trouble in one dimension make you miserable.

If, for instance, your spouse fusses at you or your child is disrepectful, if your boss gives you a talking-to, you're much better off if you have some other dimension to seek refuge in: art or sports or reading or hiking or just time with friends or whatever, at least temporarily.

Consider the consequences of limiting your dimensions. Here's an extreme example: You've just been fired, you're not married, you're out of touch with your birth family, and you have no interests -- maybe because your job was everything. Depressing, no? Here's another, not quite as drastic: You sky-dive as a hobby (or ride motorcycles or even ski), and you get hurt. Let's hope you have a boss who will understand, a family that will take care of you, friends to visit you, and other interests that you can do from your bed or at least your house.

There is no end to the combinations of possibilities that will happen to us as humans, both good and bad, but living life on a wider scale, a multi-dimensional life, gives us a better chance of getting through the hard times -- the collapse of a dimension (work, marriage/family, a prized friendship, etc.).

[There are, of course, negative dimensions available to us -- crime, addiction, etc. -- but that's a topic for another time. Let's stay positive for now.]

I think it was Socrates who said, "The un-examined life is not worth living." So start examining yours right now and see if you can identify all your dimensions. It may be time to start adding a few. I'm betting you'll be a more satisfied person for the effort -- and better company, too.