Okay

It's great to feel great. Sometimes it's good to feel bad, even though we may not like it. Emotionally bad. It can give us the oomph to improve ourselves or our surroundings. Physically bad, not so good.

But what about that vast area in between? We don't feel great, but we don't feel like crawling under a rock to die. We don't even feel good. Or melancholy.

Today I feel ...okay. I've done nothing great. I haven't helped anybody, nor been helped by anybody. I didn't give scads of cash to a needy organization, didn't give blood. I didn't offend anyone intentionally, nor am I aware of having done so unintentionally. I made some people laugh. Some made me laugh. But aside from laughter being special in its own right, it was nothing special. I'm not especially happy, but neither am I especially unhappy.

"Hi. How ya doing?"

"I'm okay."

One can read so much into "okay," as though it were a mask for underlying distress. And we do use it that way:
"How ya doin'?"
"(Well, my mother-in-law moved in yesterday and she's a terrible cook, yet she insists that she cook for us, and her favorite ingredient is beets; and my daughter's dating a medical school student, but my daughter's only fifteen; and my wife just discovered a large lump in her breast, but) I'm okay."

But sometimes we're just okay. Not bad. Not great. Not angry. Not joyous. Not hungry. Not stuffed. Not sleepy. Not terribly alert....

So the next time someone says he's "okay," he probably is just that. Just realize that you just failed to make his day great. Face that challenge and perhaps you will have lifted your day up from "okay" to ...something better than "okay."

Okay?

(I had this idea for a GREAT post, but then I ran out of steam, and it turned out merely okay. Sorry.)


dassall