I was talking to a colleague the other day about her podcast, “Fine is a Four-Letter Word,” and I had a moment thinking about the people I know who always answer the question of “How are you?” with, “Fine.” You know these people. You’ve probably been one of these people. Sometimes we answer that way because we’re not okay but don’t have the energy to get into the details. And sometimes we say, “Fine,” because we feel fine. Either way, I believe there’s an opportunity here.
My college-age son answers my, “How are you Bud?” with, “Fine,” a lot. I know better. I’m the mom. We know things. Especially when it’s someone close to us. I thought about what a good response would be for my son and came up with, “You can always talk to me about anything and I’ll always listen.” It was true, but in the moment it felt not-good-enough.
I, of course, wanted to fix the pain. But we can’t do that for others. We can hold out the life preserver, but they have to grab hold of it. We can let them know it’s there. That is a good thing to do.
On the matter of being the one to say, “Fine,” to avoid sharing details, why do we do this?
Firstly I do choose the people I share deeply with. It’s a trust thing. It’s really good to have people you trust to talk to. And when we go through really hard times, sometimes we feel we’re leaning on those people…
