lesson #51: Be aware of your own "Fine, thank you"...

"How're you?"
"Fine, thanks. How 'bout you?"
"I'm fine too, thanks."

Sounds awfully normal, eh? Maybe too normal. At least that's what I now think.

I was late to realize that I haven't been giving the word justice by applying it to all sorts of combinations of situations which hadn't actually been that "fine"..

If I get specific, then I'm actually talkin about when people ask how I'm doing. It just sounds the most normal thing to say, isn't it? If people ask me how I am doing just for formality, then I'd answer them the same way. Short, sweet, and -businessmen and economists alike are fond of this word - efficient.

Is that a good reason? Mm, lemme hold that case somewhere n come back to it later.

Maybe the thing that bothers me most is when I started saying "I'm fine" to my good friends when they might've asked me sincerely to know how I am doing. It's one thing when they're not actually interested, but it's another thing when I'm the one who activate such a default answer because I can't bother to open up my life. This happens when the answer stops with "I'm fine" and more or less conveys a "Thanks, but I don't think you need to know anything else. Or if you do, then I don't have time to let you know"..

Only after about two years ago did I realize how superficial I was treating my friendships. How in the world am I supposed to have good friends in the house when I keep telling them to wait outside the door?

So I decided to change myself a little. I managed to prepare more adjectives other than "fine" and got myself a little team of "Great!", "Not really good", and "Quite alright lah".. and so they would come into play when I'm feeling good, bad, and jus OK, respectively.

They're somewhat more honest n sincere, aren't they? If I need to use them in a more formal setting, then I can always add positive things (that are really happening) to the honest answers using "but", right? Then I'll be both honest and optimistic. Well, at least I won't ruin the atmosphere.

But don't these answers sound too short for answering friends? Well, maybe the good thing about these short honest answers are that I find them to be automatically selective. How? Friends who wanna know more probably won't be satisfied with my answer and won't be intimidated from asking me further questions - which of course, I should be prepared to answer. On the other hand, those who don't want to know more will at least have my honest answer and are satisfied enough to continue on to discuss other topics.

Not bad, eh? :)

Be aware of your own "Fine, thank you". Sometimes defaults answers aren't exactly honest ones.


Well, so much I can say after being absent from my blog for nearly 6 months.. I apologize for the delay and I am grateful for the support.. Thanks, everyone!