What does 'quality of life' really mean?

Sept. 2, 2005

Spectrum\Budd Goodyear

You will hear politicians and pseudo-environmentalists talk about "quality of life." Teachers instruct kids in our schools about this starry-eyed concept that must have some meaning. But what does it mean?

To some, it's a fine cigar after dinner. Not me. For me, a deep hole on a river holding dozens of king salmon and few fishermen is quality. Or, a bull moose with a 60-inch horn in my gun sight. Hunting and gathering my own food. Yes! Others seek steaks cut and wrapped in plastic. They don't want to know where the meat came from or how it got to the grocery.

Some folks enjoy the hustle and bustle of a city and the energy they find there. I like camping along the Denali Highway in late September or October just before the snow comes when no one is around. Give me the solitude of the Parks Highway in winter when you can drive miles without seeing another vehicle on the road. That is quality to me. It's like driving into a Currier & Ives Christmas card.

There are people who worship the sun and hate rainy days. For me a gentle rain or even softly falling snow energizes me. When I hear snowflakes schussing through the tree branches on a twilight evening, wow. I love thunderstorms, too.

I really like it when the red squirrel climbs out on a limb of one of our spruce trees and "talks" to me when I'm working in the yard. Others find squirrels annoying.

You think about it. Consider it some. What gives your life quality? There are a very few things that fit all of us. A roof over our heads, food on the table, good water to drink and good health are most of them. Those mean a job or income of some kind. A job equals quality. Everything else we want in our life is as variable as each of our individual personalities. While tangible items contribute to a full life, the need for them and experience with them is personal and emotional.

A lot of people love to have many friends. Some people like to have oodles of time alone. A big family gives life meaning for many while others enjoy life challenges without the closeness. A mother and father in one family will welcome a new child with joy and pray the baby has a good life. In another family, one seeks to abort a pregnancy to improve life's quality.

When you think it out, it becomes clear that "quality of life" does not work as a catch-all term. What then, can we say about the idiom? The phrase is as empty as a flat balloon. "Quality of life" is one of those blanket terms that schemers use to try to place all of us into one group. But, as you can see, it does not work. The expression is meaningless.

When a politician or one of those absurd environmentalists say "quality of life," I know they are not talking to me. They don't know me. They don't know what qualities I want in life. They cannot be speaking to me. Most importantly, they cannot speak for me. What they want is to herd us all together to back some questionable plan that supposedly means an improvement in our "quality of life."

Plotters use that term to get us to support putting government money in a crony's pocket. They may want to lock us off public lands we own together. The tricksters will try to get us to buy some new technology that can 't sell itself because it doesn't work or is not cost effective.

"Quality of life," a schussing snowfall or tropical sun? A moose in your sights or a steak wrapped in plastic wrap? Locked out of public lands or able to go there even when you are old and have bad knees? King salmon in the river with no people around or boisterous camp and elbow fishing? I know what I want for the good life. If you know what you need for quality living, you realize one thing for sure, politicians and shammers who use that worn-out phrase don't know what they are talking about.

Budd Goodyear is a Wasilla resident.