Over the past few decades, some philosophers have argued for the importance of temporal structures in any discussion of the meaning of life or a theory of happiness. Contrary to the notion of sum-ranking, much work has shown that the estimate of well-being or self-esteem varies with context and the role that narrative understanding plays in the whole of human life.
With this position in mind, I focus in this paper on two intentions that are used for understanding one's whole life from the viewpoint of the self. First, this understanding involves one's intentional stance toward past time. This stance plays a role in the integration of various human experiences into a coherent plot or a story-line (called the "narrative mode) on the basis of a particular perspective. Another intentional stance sets the appropriate means-ends connection in human life. To make one's whole life intelligible, these two intentions must have a complementary relation.
Based on this perspective, I present some suggestions for the practical estimation of one's whole life.

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