Both of these phrases, while hardly new, seem very potent to me.
I never hear either one that it doesn’t give me pause. I live in Canada and much has been made of the annual Standard of Living / Best Places to Live indexes that seem to come out yearly.
I understand it’s purpose and application and see that we do well as we enjoy things like low infant mortality rates and universal access to quality education and health care. But I never hear talk of this that I don’t ponder the unmeasurable things I know they’ve missed.
I’ve traveled enough in the third world to know that material wealth isn’t the measure of quality. I often witnessed virtues and values at work that were sadly lacking in my own culture.
“Quality of Life” is also a hairy phrase for me. As a caregiver to someone who is paralysed I have struggled with this concept as well. It’s a different thing being measured, to be sure, totally different agenda. But being up close to how it’s being weighed and measured also makes me think back to my feelings about, “Standard of Living.”
I know my insurance agent takes into account how close, in meters and yards, I live to a fire station, a police station, the hospital. It seems that everyone is trying to quantify
something.
But were I to attempt to measure Quality of Life/Standard of Living there are certain things I’d simply have to include. The following sort of things, taken from my own life, for instance;
Where I live:
I can hear birdsong and church bells.
I live within 2 blocks of a Portugese Bakery, a Halal butcher, a fresh fruit market.
I live a short walk from a greenspace, where cultural festivals are often held.
I can walk to a bank, post office, grocery store, library, my dr’s office.
I work at home but always felt blessed when I could walk to my place of work, so how long the comute is, would definitely count.
When I was at University my life was peppered with people who owned and played musical instruments. Now, this is not the case, and I miss it terribly. So I would give this really high points.
Owning a pet would score pretty high.
I can see flowers and trees out my windows, and I have a small garden I tend.
I really treasure these immeasurable parts of my life, they really do add the ‘value’.
How about you, what really adds value to your life that no one seems to measure?
What do you think should be on the list?