Reaction paper 7 - Assignment Example

Life Satisfaction and Its Measurement Life Satisfaction and Its Measurement We often hear from the surrounding people that they dislike their lives, they are sick and tired from constant problems, they detest their jobs and their colleagues, they hate anything which is unpleasant and causes troubles. The same frequent are complaints about low salaries and lack of money, absence of properties that are considered to be attributes of happy life – a car, a luxurious house, a space-age electronic device.

We forget, though, that we live only once and it is necessary to appreciate every second and try to make it vivid and remarkable as it will never come back. It is necessary to consult psychology to find out whether dissatisfaction of life is harmful or not and to consider whether it is possible to measure it, as many people are normally satisfied or dissatisfied with measurable things. Psychology, Life Satisfaction and its MeasurementFrom the psychological point of view, life dissatisfaction can be a consequence of a depression, a condition when a man usually notices nothing good in his life and tends to think that life is bad at all.

Life satisfaction, on the contrary, is an indicator of overall health. It is necessary to mention though that life satisfaction and dissatisfaction are very subjective: the same event – entering a university, marriage, death of a friend or a relative – is perceived differently by individuals. It is also believed that the rich are completely satisfied with their lives as they can afford anything. This is only partially true – they definitely can afford material things, but they cannot return their favorite pet even having billions of money.

People who think that way consider that life satisfaction is measured by number of houses, cars and other expensive things, and money itself, but usually they think so because the only thing they lack in their own lives is money. A bright example of the poor who are content with their lives are the people who survived wars, terrorists attacks, epidemics and other situations that threaten a human’s life. They know for sure that life is worth enjoining and this is the supreme and the best value, no matter how reach or poor a person is.

Subjective Well-BeingIn our consumerism era, we got used to consider well-being as plenty of properties and material independence. “Subjective well-being is a broad category of phenomena that includes people’s emotional responses, domain satisfactions, and global judgments on life satisfaction” (Diener et al, 1999). It is quite possible to suppose that subjective well-being is a total satisfaction with one’s aspects of life, for example, family, profession, aesthetic, financial and others.

Public Policy for Enhancement of Life SatisfactionIt is very similarly that, striving for material well-being, we have forgotten how valuable and precious our lives are. It is necessary to remember people about this and to make them think that the best thing is to be at least alive and to be satisfied with what you have now, because there are always people who live worse. Road billboards, for example, can be covered with posters depicting combat actions and people suffering from them (obviously, without any blood or violence – static images of destroyed buildings, for instance), conduction of seminars and lectures with real representatives of such society, creating films and videos on this topic.

Conclusion Modern society is almost deprived of a habit to think of the others. This reflects is constant nagging that life is bad and is not worth living. It is necessary to break this habit, to think badly of life, and to teach people to reflect on themselves conditions of living of those who are deprived of elementary things, but are quite happy to be alive. ReferencesDiener, E., Suh, E., Lucas, R., Smith, H. Subjective Well-Being: Three Decades of Progress. (1999). Psychological Bulletin, 125 (2), 276-302.