Analytical material by Oleksii Vedrov, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences: “‘Everything is fine in life': interaction with those around us and individual well-being in Ukraine”

“Everything is fine in her / his life” — this familiar, extremely concise yet capacious formula conveys well the meaning of a word that takes scholars paragraphs, articles and even whole books to explain: well-being. On hearing it we immediately grasp the whole broad palette of meanings, which is not reduced to wealth alone — what the less artificial but narrower Ukrainian word “dobrobut” (prosperity) makes us think of. It is well known that once a society passes a certain threshold of material provision, people's well-being stops rising with further growth in income. The role of non-material factors then becomes even more apparent — relations with those close to us, having interesting occupations, the meanings a person invests in their own activity, and so on.

It is precisely “social well-being”, that is, the state of a person's relations with their social environment, that is often one of the most decisive factors in whether a person is satisfied with their life and feels happy. Indeed, when we hear from someone that “everything is fine in her / his life”, what usually comes to mind, besides material security, work and physical health, is “healthy” family relations, having friends, the absence of conflicts and of the stresses they cause — in general, “being in harmony” with one's environment and one's community.

Read about this in the analytical material by Oleksii Vedrov, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences.