JUST BRILLIANT!

We are such smart people. Amazing, are we not? We are so good. So wise. Sometimes seemingly brilliant! Our society is absolutely superior when it comes to knowing it all. Should we hit what could merely be termed a temporary mind block, surely some Jobs or Gates will tinkle with the technology and miraculously save the day.

One of my favorite places dripping with humble astuteness is this keen ability to assess the value of life. Perhaps better articulated: the ability to accurately pinpoint one’s “quality of life.” Yes, we are amazing!

The University of Vermont has created an integrated definition of the “quality of life” that describes eleven objective human "needs" that are moderated by subjective human "wants."

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) advocates the HRQOL (Health-Related Quality of Life), a tool for medical professionals to measure the effects of disorders, disability, and disease to assist in guiding policy and intervention.

And lest we not notice, in the congressionally-written stimulus/spending/spending/stimulus package, at least prior to Friday night’s passage, there was a section buried within the 1,071 pages that made certain healthcare provisions contingent on a subjective government evaluation of that quality. (FYI: for the record, it is utterly irresponsible for any congressman or woman to have voted for OR against that package without reading its entire pages.)

The challenge with man believing he possesses the ability to discern quality of life is that man could be wrong. Man is not God. Quality of life is not based on how many video systems we own or $3.70 lattes we can buy in a week (granted, my young adolescents would perhaps vehemently dispute the first of those 2). Quality of life is not measured via materialism. It is not measured by wealth, prosperity, and or even appearance or abundance. I would add that an accurate diagnosis cannot be made even with acknowledgement of the aforementioned disorder, disability, or disease. Life is certainly more challenging when confronting gut-wrenching hardship, but that does not compute to an automatic lessening of quality.

There were two friends whose primary years of influence paralleled one another. One was gorgeous. One was not. One was surrounded by wealth. The other surrounded by sickness. Yet while one avoided the limelight, the other could not shake its publicizing rays. When their years ended, one died with a bang. The other went out with a whimper.

Diana, Princess of Wales, died on August 31, 1997. 5 days later Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Mother Teresa, passed away. Based on our measurements, the royalty, celebrity, and prosperity of Princess Diana’s life (minus the infidelity and hounding paparazzi) would still have produced a significantly high score on the quality of life assessment. Mother Teresa, who devoted her life to showing grace and mercy to “the poorest of the poor” - and I am sure had some quiet sense of divine satisfaction - well, I am sorry, but she would have scored fairly low.

Yes, we are such smart people. Amazing, are we not?

AR