We talk a lot about things like our "standard of living" and "quality of life," and there's a hidden implication when we do so that a standard of living is directly correlated with how much money you make.
I suppose that's inevitable in a world where many people subscribe to the idea that money does buy happiness.
Comparisons are often made between different parts of the world and most people here in the USA are quick to point out that people in the US — in general, when comparing job for job — make more money than people in most other parts of the world.
In most cases, that's definitely true.
But when we're talking about our standard of living and our quality of life are we really using the right metric to measure by?
What if we shifted our perspective a little bit, and instead argued that our "standard of living" is less about how much money you have as it is about how much freedom you have to actually enjoy your life?
After all, we are talking about quality of life not quantity of life!
Granted, different things are given different priorities in different parts of the world. However, for me, that always leads to the deeper thought experiment of sitting back and truly studying whether those priorities a pushed upon us by society, marketing messages and peer pressure... or they are actually derived from truly asking individuals what it is they want from life and affording them the freedom to pursue precisely that.
At an individual level I must admit that my quality of life is not measured by "how productive" I am, but rather measured by the degree to which I can — and do — enjoy my life. By such a measure... there are often gaping holes!
As a European who quite voluntarily lives in the United States there are certain things I definitely miss. One of these is being able to simply stop and take some time off — if nothing else, for my own mental health benefit — and knowing that if I do so, what I have would still be enough to fund my life.
So-called "hustle culture" does not suit my temperament, at all.
I am also terrified (on a daily basis) of getting ill because chances are I wouldn't be able to afford to pay for any kind of major illness even with decent health insurance… which, in turn, constitutes my largest monthly expense: insurance. Between health insurance, house insurance, auto insurance a very significant chunk of my available income is already spent.
I'm not interested in the debate of whether the system is working or not working, I'm merely questioning whether it's even possible to have any quality of life under a system that pretty much requires you to never slow down for fear that you're not going to be able to make it, financially.
Until I moved to the USA, I'd never even heard of such a thing as "medical bankruptcy."
I reflect on these things as I approach my 65th birthday and get closer and closer to this thing called "retirement age"… although I doubt I will ever be able to afford to retire. It's sobering, and a little sad.
Thankfully what I work with does not require a great deal of physical strength or manual dexterity, so I can hopefully go on for a long time. Even so, this constant awareness that should anything go wrong there is only a gaping chasm underneath me does reduce my quality of life a good bit and brings up this lingering question of whether we are even measuring "quality of life" correctly.
And now, I must get back to work!
Thanks for stopping by and have a great remainder of your weekend!
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Created at 2025.07.26 16:15 PDT
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