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Types / Five pillars

A check-in for real life

See what matters, then see where life pulls apart.

Five pillars looks at five parts of life one at a time. It shows how each part is going, how much it matters, and where those two answers leave room to think.

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Illustration of a person walking between five colorful pillars with hills beyond.

A way to look at life

The check-in looks at five parts of life one at a time. It asks how each part is going and how much it matters, then shows where those two answers pull apart. That distance can point to a part of life worth looking at more closely. It can’t diagnose anything or tell somebody what to want.

One thinker’s starting point

Carl Jung named five things he thought make for a happy life in a 1960 newspaper interview. That is one thinker’s view, not a proven recipe—and we did not find a questionnaire that measures his five as a set. So we measure each part with questions from researchers or government surveys where we could find them, plus a few of our own. Questions of our own are marked as ours, so you can tell the difference between an established measure and an experiment we are still learning from.

Two answers for each part

Each part gets two questions of its own: how it’s going, and how much it matters. The useful detail is the distance between those answers, because a part can matter greatly while going poorly, or feel fine while mattering less. The two are never added together into a score.

What the drawing means

Any one of the five

  • How it’s going now
  • How much it matters
  • The distance between them
The marks are placed where they are only to show the idea. A real check-in puts them where the person’s own answers fall, and the two numbers are never combined.

  • Questions with a source

    Where a researcher or government survey already had a question, the check-in uses it instead of writing a new one. Sources include the Office for National Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, NIOSH, and a public-domain item pool. Questions written for this site are marked as ours and aren’t yet validated.

  • Nothing becomes a total

    There is no happiness score, no pillar score, and nothing added together. The Office for National Statistics says its own four questions must not be added, because each captures a different part of how life feels. The check-in shows each part on its own.

  • What it can’t tell

    The check-in can’t diagnose anything, and it names no condition. It’s a reading of one day, not a verdict on a life. It doesn’t say what anybody should want, and it offers no label for a difficult season.

The five parts

Each card explains what a part covers, what the check-in asks about it, what it leaves out, and where its questions come from.

Make room for a closer look

51 questions show each of the five on its own, including where what matters and how life is going pull apart.

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Questions

Why these five parts of life?

They come from a list Carl Jung gave in a 1960 newspaper interview. That’s one thinker’s view, not a proven recipe, and no questionnaire measures his five as a set. Each part is measured with established questions where they exist, along with a few questions written for this site.

Is there one overall score?

No, on purpose. Each part is shown on its own, and how much something matters is never multiplied by or added to how it’s going. The Office for National Statistics says even its own four questions must not be added together.

Should someone take it more than once?

Yes, that’s what it is for. It reads a moment, so the same questions a few months later can show what moved. A retake within a year asks 41 questions instead of 51, because the 10 statements about art and beauty are asked once a year.

Which questions are ours?

Most questions come from a government survey or a published scale, and they’re used word for word. The satisfaction and importance questions are ours, as are the outlook questions, and they’re marked wherever their answers show because they haven’t been validated. That’s the difference between an established measure and an experiment.