Right.  If you were asked ?

How is the Quality of your life. What would you say?

Would you say, its great because your having great sex, or you have found God, or your are loaded and could not give a shit.

Or if your were a Refugee or one of the Poverty Stricken, or about to have your hands cut off for nicking an apple you would probably mutter – Inchallah how gives a fuck.

There can be no real quality to your life when you see what is happening in the world that we all share.

So when you hear Politicians waffling on about how well off you are they are talking cod wallop.

Why, Because to measure the quality of life on behalf of someone else requires proxies to put themselves in another person’s shoes, to imagine what it feels like to be them, and to speculate about the impact of their health and health care on their experience of life.

How many Politicians do you know that have lived in a Slum, or watched a child die from Malnutrition.

The main difference between standard of living and quality of life is that the former is more objective, while the latter is more subjective.

Standard of living factors such as gross domestic product, poverty rate and environmental quality, can all be measured and defined with numbers, while quality of life factors like equal protection of the law, freedom from discrimination and freedom of religion, are more difficult to measure and are particularly qualitative to the gap between expectations and experience.

The point here is that people see different possibilities for themselves when they evaluate different factors that have an impact on their quality of life and off course there are no quality of life measurement that reliably identify people who feel that life is not worth living.

All indicators are flawed. Quality of life is more subjective and intangible than any measurement.

Do you calculate it by evaluating how many of the describing quality of life factors a country guarantees for its citizens.

freedom from slavery and torture
equal protection of the law
freedom from discrimination
freedom of movement
freedom of residence within one’s home country
presumption of innocence unless proved guilty
right to marry
right to have a family
right to be treated equally without regard to gender, race, language, religion, political beliefs, nationality, socioeconomic status and more
right to privacy
freedom of thought
freedom of religion
free choice of employment
right to fair pay
equal pay for equal work
right to vote
right to rest and leisure
right to education
right to human dignity

The above can only help us get a general picture of what life is like in a particular location at a particular time.

Greater understanding is needed of how expectations and adaptation by people influence people’s assessment of their quality of life.

There is one thing for certain that I have found in my life, that giving rather than receiving enhances ones life whether you have quality or not.

This is why we the living must remove Inequality by placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all Foreign Exchange Transactions of over $20,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions , on all High Frequency Stock Exchange Trading.  ( see Previous Blogs)

Foot note :

Although the moral, social, and political reasons for wanting to maintain a prohibition on ending someone’s life are powerful, it is important to acknowledge that these deny individuals the right to make the full range of choices that logically follow from a decision that life is not worth living.

In particular, In the meantime, clinicians would do well to remember that when their assessment of quality of life is at odds with that of the patient, it is the patient who should have the final word.  He has little power other than to support a decision not to treat a patient and so will prevent a life from being prolonged or saved.