When people are asked to rate their life on a scale from 0 to 10 — from the worst possible life to the best possible life — we tend to assume something obvious:
That people have actually thought about what the best possible life means.
In reality, most haven’t.
And that matters more than we admit.
A deep question hiding in plain sight
At first glance, the question sounds simple:
“Where do you stand in your life right now?”
But buried inside it is something far more demanding:
Compared to the best life you could possibly live… where are you?
That assumes a lot.
It assumes you’ve reflected on:
What “a good life” actually is
What your best life might look like
What is realistically possible for you
How close or far away you are from it
For many people, that reflection has never happened.
What people actually answer instead
When faced with that question, most people don’t pause for existential self-inquiry. They substitute something easier.
They ask themselves things like:
“Am I doing OK compared to people like me?”
“Am I safe, stable, and not in crisis?”
“Is my life broadly on track?”
“Could things be worse?”
So the answer becomes less about the best possible life and more about whether life feels viable.
That’s not a criticism. It’s human.
Why the numbers still “work”
Despite this substitution, life evaluation scores are surprisingly useful at population level.
They move in predictable ways when:
Economies collapse
Health systems fail
Trust in institutions breaks down
People feel unsafe or powerless
In other words, the measure is very good at detecting distress.
It tells us when something is structurally wrong.
What it does not tell us is whether people are flourishing, fulfilled, or growing.
The uncomfortable bit no one says out loud
Here’s the awkward truth:
If people genuinely sat down and seriously contemplated
“the best life I could live, if I really developed myself”
many scores would probably go down, not up.
Not because lives suddenly got worse — but because:
The ceiling moved
Possibility became visible
Gaps appeared that had been quietly ignored
That kind of reflection often brings discomfort before it brings clarity.
Which is exactly why most people avoid it.
Not thinking about “the best life” is protective
For many people, not asking that question is a coping strategy.
Deep reflection brings:
Regret about missed paths
Responsibility for future choices
Awareness of unrealised potential
That’s heavy. Stability often wins over self-examination.
And at societal scale, that avoidance is convenient.
Why surveys don’t go deeper
If national wellbeing surveys prompted millions of people to confront unrealised potential without support, tools, or pathways forward, the result wouldn’t be enlightenment.
It would be:
Anxiety
Lower scores
Political backlash
Claims that “things are getting worse”
So wellbeing measurement quietly settles for a safer question:
Is life broadly acceptable?
Not:
Is life fully lived?
Adequacy is not flourishing
This is how we end up with strange contradictions:
Large numbers of people rated as “thriving”
Very low engagement at work
A sense of quiet resignation rather than collapse
People aren’t miserable.
They’re coping.
And coping looks surprisingly good on a 0–10 scale.
The final trade-off
Life evaluation works because it avoids depth.
That makes it:
Stable
Comparable
Useful for policy
But it also means:
Unrealised potential is invisible
Growth is flattened into comfort
Adequacy is mistaken for wellbeing
That’s not a flaw in the data.
It’s a choice about what we’re willing to look at.
And the moment we start asking deeper questions, we’re no longer measuring wellbeing.
We’re inviting change — and that’s a very different conversation.