My wife and I belong to a book club (she belongs to several, but we go to one together). A couple of books ago, we read the book “Happiness Falls” by Angie Kim. Not particularly giving a spoiler, the title is involved with something called a “happiness quotient”. The idea is that your recent past history will reset your scales.
Say that I attended a pretty good happy film. As a 1 to 10 life experience (as opposed to a rating of the film itself), I rate it a 6 — pleasant and better than average. Now, envisage having just lost your job. You attend the same film but since you are likely feeling pretty rotten, watching that pretty good happy film might win a 8 for you as it was “just what you needed” at that time. Or your down feelings might negatively affect your appreciation of the film and you might get only a 4 for the experience of going to the film. In either case, you have altered your scale for evaluation.
The range may also depend on the local environment. In a town where there are few restaurants and little competition, it is likely that a restaurant might get a 4/5. In a different area, with more restaurants and competition, it might get a 3/5. Same restaurant, same quality but looked at (and rated) differently according to the competitive environment.
Let’s proceed towards the topic of “Happiness Falls” as mentioned above. If I have had a series of mishaps, or tragedies, occurring in my life, a well-prepared birthday party may seem like an 8/10 whereas if I just received the Nobel prize, I might consider it only a 6/10.
I have a high pain threshold (which isn’t always to my advantage). I used to have my teeth filled without anesthesia. My current dentist doesn’t give me that option. But I know of some others who have to have general anesthetic before any dental work can be done. Our scales of 1 to 10 for pain are quite different.
This is one of the many reasons why we cannot truly “walk in another’s footsteps”. Not that efforts to understand are not worthwhile — they are. But your feelings of pain, alienation, love, hate, and every other physical and emotional feeling are very unlikely to be at the same level as that of the other person. Your scales do not have the same endpoints.
What evaluation scales do you have that seem to be out-of-sync with that of others?
