I was sitting down having my morning coffee and staring out the window getting ready for my day. It occurred to me that I would soon be celebrating two years of living in Huntington. Every day when I stare out of my living room window I am reminded of the beautiful town that I get to call home. I am connected and attached to Huntington, most likely because it’s where I grew up and everything about it reminds me of my childhood. Walking around Hecksher, I am reminded of sledding down the hill behind the church with my brother. Walking around town I remember going to FAD and shopping with my girlfriends. I know it sounds dorky, but after having lived in both city life and country life, I am convinced that Huntington is the perfect mixture of both. So it got me thinking about my quality of life and I began to rate it on scale.
Our quality of life is not just defined by how much material wealth we’ve accumulated but by the degree of well being felt by an individual or group of people. It is not considered a tangible concept and cannot be measured directly. Quality of life is most commonly associated with your physical and psychological well-being. Long Islanders enjoy a higher quality of life because we are more educated (a third of New Yorkers have a Bachelors Degree or higher as compared to the rest of the Country at 25 percent) and we have better access to health care. This makes us privileged.
The Economist did a study in 2005 where they developed a “quality of life index.” They surveyed 111 countries. Their criteria included the following; material well being, health, political stability & security, family life, community life, climate & geography, job security, political freedom and gender equality. The U.S. placed 13th on their list. For individual cities, the first U.S. city was 29th. Ireland got the number one spot. We need to remember how lucky we are to get to live in such a great place. We also need to help maintain the integrity of the region so that other people and companies will continue living and working here. It’s important that Long Island maintains our quality of life, it affects us all.
