I’d rate myself a 9 too.
I’ve nothing to worry about really, quite content, made a few mild errors in judgement regarding money, education that have come back to (mildy) bite me in the rear, but I can’t complain.
I’ve a beautiful daughter, enough friends and other family and prospects beyond that.
I’d say 8
Pros:
-I have the job I want and I recently got a promotion.
-I will soon be working on a two week on, two week off roster based out of an Australian capital city of my choice (we choose Adelaide.)
-I’m married to a wonderful woman and we have two beautiful daughters and a cute dog.
-For once we are financially comfortable on just my income.
-I’m healthy enough.
-I don’t own a house and therefore don’t owe anyone lots of money.
Cons:
-I don’t own a house.
-I’m a little overweight and will need to work on that if I want to stay “healthy enough” for a long time.
-I’m living in the tropics and I don’t particularly like the heat.
-Sometimes the dog bites.
I think my life’s an 8.
I’m good looking, in good health, and 28 years old.
I have a crowd of very interesting, social friends.
I have a dream boyfriend who’s all set to propose by the holidays this year, so it looks like I’ll have the normal American Dream type life I always wanted.
I make lots of money at my job.
My only debt is my mortgage and car payment. I have a new house and a new car.
I’ve travelled the world a little bit, and the boyfriend and I are all set to travel more.
I’m not giving it a perfect dream-life 10 because…
I dislike my job. It’s easy and happens in pleasant office conditions, but I really don’t like it, and want to figure out what else to do.
I have issues with my weight, with hypoglycemia, with energy levels generally, and sometimes with self-esteem.
Given my druthers I’d like to be very rich and live in Key West, or Oxfordshire, or both alternately.
The American Dream thing isn’t actually achieved yet. Anything could happen and, with my Hashimoto’s disease, having kids might be problematic.
I’d have to say 7 at the moment. On the whole I’m happy with my life, have a nice home (which I partly own), have generally good relations with my family, have a decent income, enjoy my career which has good prospects for the future, lead a relatively active life, don’t have any debt apart from my mortgage, have savings and a long term plan for building up a passive income from them, still in my 20s (just), am a confident and outgoing person and on the whole I achieve what I want to.
Once I get my weight back down to where I want it to be (about a stone less than where I am now) and can do a bit more work on building and toning some muscles, I’ll be at 8.
When I secure my promotion to the next grade (and even better, the one above that) I’ll be at 9.
If the relationship that I’ve just embarked on turns into something solid and long term, I’ll be at 10.
This thread is interesting, because people are scoring their lives higher than I would have guessed at the outset. I’m drawing an analogy with dating and relationship threads, where almost no one seems to be happy. It’s also my sense that Americans on the whole are a dissatisfied bunch – stressed out, always longing for things they don’t and can’t have (free time, a svelte figure, a newer car, faster broadband, better TV shows, lower taxes, etc., etc., etc.). If I had to guess, I’d put the American average at 5 or so, which is a little extraordinary for the greatest nation on earth, so called. But that’s another thread, so…
I’m going to give myself a 6 because I’ve been feeling cranky lately. Too many balls in the air, and not doing such a great job of keeping them there. Some of this will resolve when the kids go back to school, and I’m hoping to be firmly in 7-8 territory then.
And now I just remembered that I’m due for a root canal, and a series of appointments to put the tooth back together. That’ll cost me about .5 right there!
Let’s see. If ten would be having more money, a better education and bigger breasts…
And nine would be having the dog behave and the stepkids live elsewhere…
And eight would be liking my job…
I’ll say seven point five. And that’s groovy. I get a little nervous when it goes above that.
Not sure how many points to take off for a marriage that is less than one might wish. But other than that, everything is hunky-dory. Everyone is healthy, no money problems. I’d probably put it in the 8-9 range. Not sure the marriage problems are fixable, or whether the rating would be higher or lower if we split.
I try not to rate my life on individual snapshots. I prefer the “52-year long film” approach. Otherwise, it’s too easy to dwell on the negative.
I made the stupid mistake of going to a school and studying things that really spoke to me. Unfortunately, the school is expensive and the degree is useless, so I’ll be graduating in a year with a staggering amount of debt, an absolutely meaningless degree, and thus no real means to fix the debt situation. So basically, I’ve completely screwed up my life. Also I’m getting fat.
On the other hand, it’s a beautiful day, I’m young and healthy, I can diet, my friends and family will help with whatever if needed, and on Saturday I might be going to the zoo.
People are rating their lives a little higher than I would have expected too. But it’s nice to see that people recognize and appreciate that life generally isn’t bad and things could always be a lot worse, at least in the USA and “first world” countries.
Life is an impossibly complex aggregation of multidimensional forces and it’s difficult to come up with a single “root sum squared” (RSS) value that reflects the state of one’s aspirations, accomplishments, relationships, possessions and regrets. Any number that one could give would be based on highly subjective evaluations of one’s environment, judgement, self-awareness and competence, and would run the risk of arbitrarily subjugating both mundane and exceptional memories of events by viewing the past with a self-referential bias.
7
Wow. The dichotomy of a few of the responses here has me a little perplexed. Some of you seem so down about where you are now in your life, yet you rate it a 7 or 8, which is quite high. I was going to give myself a 9, only because there are things I haven’t yet done, but how can when those who are generally dissatisfied with things, are somewhat depressed, hate their jobs, and have immediate health and weight concerns give themselves an 8?
Anyway, here’s mine.
Male, 47
Plusses
Minuses
I think it’s a little hard to do because I don’t know what scale it rate it on.
In the grand scheme of things it’s probably an 8 or 9. Cute loving girlfriend, close family, friends, job, some money, living in NYC area. As many kids as I want right now (zero)
On a scale of 0 being a Port Authority crackhead and 10 being Hugh Hefner, probably around a 5 or 6. Unless it’s by population, then probably an 8 or 9, considering all the people who have it less fortunate than me.
As for rating my life against what I would personally want my life to be and could realistically achieve (iow, not taking points off because I’m not Brad Pitt)? Probably around a 5 or 6 again. Most of which is due to disatisfaction with my career and the loss of hope of ever finding a job I give a shit about.
Female born in the First World, gotta be a 10!
I’ve been through a rough couple of years, I’m still looking for work, my debts are piling up, seen a lot of loss, confusion, frustration and anxiety.
But I’m still going with 10, because I will find work, and this will pass.
I’d say 9. I like my family and like my job, and how many people can say that? Besides, as a brand-new tenure-track assistant professor in the humanities, I beat some pretty big odds to get that job.
I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that I probably won’t marry or have children, and I do wish that weren’t the case, but there are worse fates.
9 for me.
Pluses
I love my job, and it gives me a good salary and room for advancement; I’ve got a smokin’ hot and sweet wife; I’ve got a *really * nice house that I got on the cheap (foreclosure); I’m healthy; no debt (other than the mortgage); able to save for retirement; able to enjoy my hobbies
Minuses
Carrying too much of a spare tire; wife’s libido is quite a bit lower than mine
X-factor
Recently my wife’s son came to live with us while he attends community college. I have not figured if this will be a net plus or a net minus. On one hand he’s a good kid (doesn’t drink, no drugs, never even heard him say a cuss word, doesn’t give me any attitude). However, he’s lazy and unmotivated and content to play X-Box and watch cartoons all day. I don’t think he’s ever even had a date. He also doesn’t have a driver’s license which means we have to schlepp him around. I like the kid and genuinely want to help him out, but lord he has no clue what the real world has in store for him and this could lead to contentiousness within the household. I value my free time more than just about anything these days and mostly what I want to do is come home and relax, not keep nagging a kid to study or go look for a job. We’ll see how it goes.
I’ll have to say it’s a 9. It would be a ten if I were in better physical shape, but I’m working on that.
Plus:
*Retired
*No debt
*Good-sized nest egg
*Wife who thinks I’m the shiznit
*Healthy children & grandchildren & relatives
*Getting prepared to relocate next summer
*All of the above contribute to a relatively stress-free life
Minus:
*The aforementioned physical shape: I have Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and am about 40 pounds overweight. Very, very bad on me. The good thing is that if I can get the weight off, the other problems will either be mitigated or disappear.
5, because it could be *soooo much * better or it could be *soooo much * worse.
Somewhere around a 7.5 or an 8
The pluses:
–Great job
–Fantastic husband
–Wonderful family, especially the in-laws
–Relatively healthy
–Relatively financially secure
The minuses:
–Feel like crap all the time because I’m pregnant. Clearly there are pluses to that too. 
–My family is far away from me. So are most of my very close friends.
–I wouldn’t mind a somewhat larger house, but that should be coming soon enough.
I feel like an 8.
Pluses:
Minuses:
All in all, life is pretty damn good. Compared to so many other people, my minuses are manageable.
I suspect that most people whose relationships are hunky-dory don’t post in relationship threads. What I am going to say? “My husband is kind and smart, and I’m head over heels for him.” No one is interested in that.