QOL vs SOL? Which Ranks First with Virgin Islanders
Quality of Life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as an individual’s perception of their position in life, in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns.
The term Standard of Living (SOL) generally focuses on economic factors. It refers to people’s level of prosperity, the comfort they take in material possessions, and their store-bought obsessions.
Factors that play a role in our QOL vary according to personal preferences, but indicators used regularly in measuring QOL include:
Family life, abundance or lack of it.
Employment, or how we view our job.
Environment, particularly our air and water quality.
Physical and mental health.
Education, the level we have obtained or are striving to obtain.
Leisure and recreational time that we have carved out for ourselves.
Satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our social lives.
Religious beliefs.
Safety in our surroundings. 10) Freedom, our ability to truly appreciate the freedom we live in and not take it for granted.
All of these QOL indicators, hopefully, add up to one key term: Happiness.
In judging SOL, we all know quite well that you can have all the money in the world and all the material luxuries those monies can buy, and still be as miserable as all get.
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36
SOL is actually an easy equation to measure; calculate how much money you have in the bank, how much property you own, how many TV sets you own, how many cars, boats/ships, computers and high tech gizmos you own, etc…Add them all up and you have a great indicator on what your Standard of Living equals.
It’s not as if we as individuals must break down each of these factors and assign a numerical grade to them; but on the other hand it is important, particularly in today’s challenging world, a world, that almost daily, threatens to toss us from one side of the spectrum to the other, from cool blue to hot red, and back again; a world of puzzling high tech innovation, of increasing social media pressures; a sort of new age of impersonalization, that easily mixes up our settled minds, challenges our concrete core beliefs, and eats away at the very roots of our traditional upbringing. A world that can no longer be counted on to always be fair and rational. This is the world we must plow our way through every day, every week, every year. And it becomes a long hard road to travel if we do not have a good assessment of ourselves to begin with, some sense that: ”This is who I am. I know my strengths and I know my weak points.”
The Virgin Islands Department of Human Services (DHS) deals with a great many of these 21st Century challenges as a regular part of performing their sworn duties. This sympathetic, yet strong willed group of government workers bears witness to the daily strife, the heartbreaks and sorrows, the setbacks and triumphs that Virgin Islanders go through to achieve a rewarding Quality of Life. This highly important, perhaps under-appreciated arm of government, is camped on the front lines of the battlefield that tries to ensure the Quality of Life in the USVI is as good as possible for the community at large.
“As your Commissioner,” Averil George states on the DHS website. “I want you to know that we hold you, our clients, close to our hearts. Your well-being is our top priority, and delivering exceptional services is at the core of our mission as a government agency.” Commissioner George speaks on. “We hope to continue our unwavering commitment to enhancing the quality of life for individuals and families with diverse needs. Our grand vision is to emerge as a public sector agency that empowers individuals and families on their journey toward self-sufficiency.”
And yet, that journey towards an enhanced Quality of Life is not an easy one. The factors that make up QOL are abstract, intangible, and subjective.
Collins Dictionary defines a good Quality of Life as: “A complete physical, mental, and social well-being…a standard of health, comfort and happiness.”
Yet, who can really achieve such a perfect balance in life? Are humans even capable of such a gargantuan feat? Are any of us really completely happy with our physical, mental and social states of being? Humans are not perfect. God is perfect. We are just little people struggling with our own imperfections. We ride the wave of life for as long as we are able. And we try to find happiness wherever we can.
The World Happiness Report ranks 156 countries according to how happy they are. Finland is the happiest country in the world. They consistently grab hold of that #1 position. The basis for the ranking is that Finland experiences high levels of trust and freedom among its people, which research shows contributes to well-being and productivity. Finland also consistently ranks among the best in the world for transparency and their perceived lack of corruption. (‘Perceived’ being the operable word).
And yet the World Happiness Report also shows that Standard of Living (SOL) and happiness are closely related. The report recognizes that the happiest countries in the world also have the highest Standard of Living.
In comparison, the World Happiness Report ranks the United States and United Kingdom 18th and 19th respectively.
Some recent reports even go as far to suggest that we need to devise a new way to judge our level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our lives by combining the factors that make up both SOL and QOL.
Granted, it’s all very confusing. But doesn’t it all come down to: Are we happy or aren’t we happy? And then again, maybe today we are happy, maybe tomorrow we are not. Perhaps this ambiguity is one of the challenging characteristics of life.
Yet the challenge may have its origin with the Founding Fathers who spoke of it in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Yes, the pursuit of happiness. Every American has that Right built into his or her DNA. How we go about obtaining it, whether through QOL or SOL, or a combination of both, is obviously left up to the individual person…Nevertheless, what appears to be our sworn duty as Americans, a lifelong task for each of us to figure out, is how do we best grab hold of happiness, and once we have it in our possession, how best to not let it slip out.
