Life Satisfaction Index
File this one under the “don’t ask me why” category.
Yesterday I had read Seth Godin’s article Overnight Success? , in which he extolled the virtues of slow and steady progress. He gave a line graph showing the progress of his online venture Squidoo (incidentally, here’s my Squidoo lens, still under construction).
Yesterday I also enjoyed a lovely Fuji Apple chicken salad and Forest Mushroom soup at Panera Bread while taking stock of my overall satisfaction with my life on the cusp of a new life chapter for Robin and I.
Somehow, my mind melded the two together and thought:
“Hey, wouldn’t it be interesting to graph your satisfaction with different aspects of your life over the last ten years and see how they form an overview of your happiness and general well-being?”
Well, I did, and now I bring you my Life Satisfaction Index (LSI)™ Feel free to play along at home.
I decided to rate the following aspects of my life from 1-10 on a bi-annual basis:
- My Work – general satisfaction with the work I do, i.e. “Do I feel that it is worthwhile?”
- Where I Work – based on the building, my co-workers, and the atmosphere in which I was working.
- My Life – This was a tough one, but is primarily based on relationships I was in plus financial situation divided by the square root of my social life.
- Where I Live – My physical residence compounded with my satisfaction with the city I live(d) in.
Here’s the graph I came up with:
As I had suspected, all four criteria would follow each other fairly closely even though I took great care not to consult other criteria’s numbers when filling out others. You’ll notice two distinct overall valleys in my LSI, one in early 1999 and another in late 2000/early 2001. The first coincided with my divorce and my dead end job at a crappy low-power UHF TV station in Stillwater, OK. The other coincides with the dreaded Jennifer and that’s all we’ll say about that.
Peaks at 8 correspond to the first time I moved to Kansas City in 2001, what I consider to be the heyday of Skyline Media Group in 2004, and my return to Kansas City now. The steady decline in “Where I Live” from 2003-2005 was due mostly to the fact that the crackerbox of a house that we lived in sucked ass. Oklahoma City overall is a pretty great city. I encourage you to visit some time if you have the chance.
So, here’s the average:
Right now I’m sitting at an average LSI of 6.75. My goal is to reach 8 by year’s end.