How Are You?

This is something we ask and get asked a hundred times a day. Not exactly that many, but you get the point. Anyway, no one actually wants to know how anyone is. It's just something that we say, it's part of our socially accepted greeting. Then we always answer that we're good, or fine, or whatever, and both parties move on. Sometimes we don't even think about what we're saying, and we find ourselves telling people we're doing great when really we're not at all. It's a natural reaction when people ask how we are to lie to them. It doesn't seem like a lie, because they don't want to know the truth. They don't want to hear that you aren't alright, that you are not okay, that you're about to cry. That might be a but extreme, but maybe you're having a bad day. The sad truth is that most people don't care. They don't know what to do if you don't respond with one of those predetermined answers. So with most people, saying you're good is probably the right answer. But some people do care. There are people in your life, friends or family or teachers or even me, that care how you're doing, so in that case tell them. Because that I'm not fine is going to eat up at you inside if you don't tell someone. Make sure it's the right person to tell, because the right person will help you out, and the wrong person, well, they're the wrong person. Don't let your feelings get so much that you have to tell them to someone, because then they'll all spill out to someone you don't want them to, and you'll regret it.

"'Okay?' 'Okay'."- The Fault In Our Stars by John Green