The Impact of the Current Crisis on Community’s Subjective State. Directions for Rebuilding Individual Wellbeing in the Post-Crisis Period

Abstract

The choice of a lifestyle was and will remain an important part of the way in which we organise our life, certainly in the given socio-economic and cultural conditions. Lifestyle is built in agreement with the wish of each and any of us to achieve satisfaction with life, or in philosophical language, happiness. The concept of subjective wellbeing is a fundamental one in the quality-of-life paradigm. The main indicator of the subjective state is satisfaction with life. Global satisfaction with life is the outcome of the degree of fulfillment of the individual as general average of all fields of life. In this indicator are included important human benefits, results of economic growth in relationship with the wishes and aspirations to happiness and welfare. They express the permanent orientation of the individual towards self-development/self-construction. In fact, satisfaction with life, as subjective state of individual wellbeing depends on both economic personal welfare (living standard, income, employment, financial situation) and on the state of society’s organization and governance quality, family situation, type of interpersonal and neighborship relations, social participation, etc. The lifestyle is also a key-factor here. Sectoral indicators of satisfaction with life cover the main spheres of human existence (family, profession, work, free time, safety, civic and political participation, personal development, interpersonal relationships, neighborship and friendship relationships, etc.). Subjective wellbeing or “subjective/perceived quality of life” is a critical structural component of the global state of wellbeing. It is the human filter of the objective living conditions. The subjective quality of life is not just the summation of the quality of life’s components, but more than that, the synthesis of its results: the state of human balance, tranquility, wellness. And, the result might allow accessing happiness, the perpetual aspiration of the human. By means of the subjective indicators for satisfaction with life, happiness benefits of ways for precise measurement and analysis. The concept of happiness is a key-concept of all philosophical systems, but it entered by operational forms also in socio-humane, medical and economic sciences, etc.