Tonight, as I answered the questions, I kept thinking about the fact that I was answering honestly and yet, my answers were not giving a true picture of my well-being. You know how polls are: multiple choice answers with no place for comment; and thus, I was thoroughly frustrated. And so, at the end of the poll, when the editors commented that we could call and talk or send email to make comments about the poll and its questions, I did just that: I wrote to him ... or them.
It was important to me that people know that I am a very happy woman even when my answers would seem to point in a different direction. And so, as these thoughts are important to me, I am adding them here.
"Because of the wording of the questions on the well-being survey, I am quite certain that my responses have caused me to sound further down on the well-being scale than I actually am.
For example, because I have several of those physical problems that cause me to be unable to do as much as others or do as much as I once did, that cause me to be in pain, cause me to be less involved in civic affairs, activities that bring me pleasure, admiration, a feeling of complete satisfaction etc., I sound dissatisfied with life.
And yet, I am quite satisfied with the life I have led. I know what I have done in the past and how very good I was at it, how much applause I have received, the admiration I have known; and I am quite happy about the life I have lived and I rest in that. My former students frequently write me and still express gratitude or admiration for the things I once did. (Almost 250 have sought me out on FaceBook and I have messages from several of them almost every day.)
Further, I am a widow, but I once had a wonderful, rich, very fulfilling relationship with a wonderful husband. That is no more; but I have the memories. I have no children, but I do have a niece who has allowed me to step in for her mother who died. In other words, although I must appear to have a non fulfilled life, the opposite is true.
You see, I have accepted the fact that much of this is over in my life; and yet, I never know what may be around the corner. I teach people every day about something; people come to me with questions and seek advice; I blog; and as I said, I am on FaceBook with many, many people and I am NOT just playing Farmville.
I am a retired teacher. I have little money for buying things or taking vacations. Sometimes, I have to put off buying things I really need until the next end-of-the-month infusion of money. But I do not stress over that. I have accepted that there isn't a lot I can do about it. I enjoy the good things that do happen and the good things I do have.
And the proof of all that is that since I retired from a very busy, very full life that I truly enjoyed, my blood pressure has returned to the low-normal it was forty years ago and the weight that I struggled to lose all those years is now steadily, although slowly, dropping every month.
I can no longer do the things I once could do and as things stand, that will never change. I cannot go to the symphony or eat out at a very nice restaurant. But just this week one of those wonderful former students sent me two tickets for the Symphony concert on Saturday night. Others have taken me out to eat; and at Christmas, another former student brought and set up a Christmas tree which I decorated to my heart's content and in doing so, encouraged several other retirees around me to do the same.
But nowhere on the survey could I answer the question of whether I was happy with my life, whether I was contented. I am all of those things. There is no way I can see my way of life changing. That probably made me sound low on the well-being scale; but I am entirely otherwise. I am fine, for God has given me complete contentment in my situation.
Yes, I wish I were not in pain every day; and yes, I wish I had about a thousand dollars more a month; and yes, I wish my apartment were larger and more comfortable, more pleasing to the eye, more convenient, modernized. But I am fine. Although I have never been wealthy, I have never been this broke and unable to do fairly common things. But life could be so much worse.
I am a very happy and very contented woman and I needed for someone to know, for those questions gave me no place to say that, after I answered the given questions very honestly. Yes, I am happy and contented. I read, watch TV, talk on the telephone, and spend entirely too much time on the computer ... sometimes all at the same time. I enjoy life even though my situation on paper screams out that I should not. And I needed for you to know that. Knowing that someone will read this and know that a person can score low on the well-being scale and yet be very well, truly pushes me higher on the scale of well-being."
