A question to ponder
As there was a new moon and a total solar eclipse on Monday, I spent last weekend journalling on prompts suggested by an astrology app.
(Yes, this is a woo-woo opening, but it’ll get practical in a minute, I promise.)
To be fair, these prompts were pretty darn good. They included questions like,
Do you feel free and autonomous, and if not, who or what is holding you back?
Are you clear about your values and what you want to commit your energy to?
What courageous decisions can you make in your life?
(I won’t lie, that last one made me go “Oof!"” when I read it.)
All of these are excellent questions to ask ourselves. But there’s another that came to me unprompted as a result of these questions.
You see, there’s a phrase that’s jumped out at me over the last month.
It’s listed among the ten categories that Pelin Kazak Bagatur uses when planning and considering her year ahead. There are prompts and spaces to journal about it in my Legend Planner, too.
But it’s a concept that I’ve found really difficult to understand until now.
It’s the idea of ‘quality of life.’
I’ll be honest. I’ve really struggled with getting my head around this term.
For one, it’s pretty nebulous and undefined. What does it mean, greater ease? Your level of enjoyment? An indefinable quality that you only know when you see it?
I’ve lived precariously for most of my life, so uncertainty about the future has meant that I’ve focused on preparedness and survival. Who can think about their quality of life when they’re worried about meeting their basic needs? It’s all pretty Maslow, right?
So I guess that what follows may be a really privileged question. Or at least, for me, one that reflects a certain acceptance of life’s precarious nature as another birthday knocks on my door.
As the question that sprung to mind was this:
“What would improve my quality of life?”
And if I’m contemplating whether to say yes or no to something and making a decision:
“How will this impact my quality of life?”
These are not rocket-science questions. For some, these will be bleeding obvious. “Jeez, how else do you make decisions?”
For others, the answers will seem so far out of reach that they will seem tragically farcical (‘Access to affordable healthcare and enough income to meet all of my modest outgoings’).
So I’m using these questions in small ways to reframe the things I feel I have to do.
Stuff like going through the items I inherited from my mum (which would improve my quality of life as I can create more space in my tiny flat) or contemplating work opportunities (I’ve already turned two things down).
I’ve enrolled in an advanced level 4 counselling course so that I can build a new revenue stream in the future (which will help me spend more time in my Zone of Genius).
And it challenges my natural tendency to make decisions out of fear (see David Papa’s brilliant Unlocking Happiness summit talk to learn more about this).
Which means I’m seriously considering buying a folding e-bike as a mobility aid, despite the prohibitive cost and weight, to help me spend more time outdoors.
Do you consider your quality of life when making decisions? What does the term mean to you?
. . .
Photo by Kristina Paukshtite: https://www.pexels.com/photo/yellow-and-orange-flowers-2317914/
