Hi, how are you?
Pretty terrible actually.
Aren’t you glad you asked?
What is the benchmark for being “OK?” and do people really want to know if we’re OK and doing well?
It’s a benign question if everything is going well for you at any given point in time.
But what about when it isn’t?
What about when you’re not OK because you feel your life is falling apart and you’re terrified of seemingly innocent questions that may trigger a minor (or major) meltdown?
These might be standard social questions such as:
How’s the family? Tearing each other apart, thanks very much.
You’re looking well! Really? I haven’t slept more than 4hrs a night for a month worrying about this thing I don’t want to talk about.
Work busy? I’m stressed out of my brain and nobody seems to notice, I’m miserable but with so many bills to pay and people to take care of, I can’t just up and quit, can I?
We can’t simply avoid all social interactions, and surely even the over-sharers are struggling with this at times.
Am I the only one who doesn’t see ditching authenticity to maintain a safe “fine, thanks” response as an unviable solution? Try as I might, I can’t always pull off my alternative “Living the dream, of course!”
I’m seeing it as a symptom of a return to normality in a post-Covid world, where we’re meeting people in the flesh, bumping into them in the hallway, sitting opposite them at the lunch table, making small talk at dinner parties, networking events or on the sporting sidelines. These are all environments where that polite little question “how are you going?” sometimes threatens to take us out like a menacingly placed land mine.
The problem is, there doesn’t seem to be a socially acceptable benchmark or language for being OK.
We could go with the absolute basic for being OK – “Yes, I’m OK, I woke up this morning. Breathing. Unassisted!”.
Or perhaps a more scientific foundation, from our friend Maslow and his hierarchy of needs – “as far as physiologically and safety are concerned, that’s a big tick for me! But belonging and love… that’s another story”.
A safer approach could be a sliding scale, where 10 is terrific and 1 is barely functioning – “I’m a solid 6 out of 10 today”.
I like this, because the other person could consider their score and before you know it, you’re talking about 10/10 days and 3/10 days and not your problems!
It seems to me, the stock standard “I’m well, thank you for asking” should be reserved exclusively for certain polite exchanges such as those in restaurants, hotels and business meetings.
The really important point here is actually how you tell people who care about you that you are not doing so well.
This can be hard, particularly if you’re normally the strong, resilient one, or what’s giving you grief comes with some feelings of guilt, shame or vulnerability.
It can also be hard if you’ve been living in a virtual, online, socially distanced world for so long that some of your connections to loved ones don’t feel quite as robust as they did a few years ago. Or maybe you just got busy with life and let some quality relationships trail off, so bringing people up to speed on what’s happening feels too exhausting or overwhelming.
So whether you decided to start sharing your score, or telling trusted loved ones how you really feel when they ask, as humans hard wired for connection and love, whatever way you share your truth will be better than not sharing it at all.
the-well-club.com 