Rose Colored Words

As a youth we had a regional church leader that was a very happy and outgoing man. Every time he saw me I remember he would ask "How are you doing?" and I would answer something like "Good," or "Fine," and his response was always "Good!? Not great?" or "Fine? Not amazing?" Something along those lines. To some extent there was something rote about it. But at the same time, it was better than the typical response of not questioning or investigating why the person didn't say they were better than good/fine. If I was actually better than fine then I could respond "You're right, I am great!" And if I wasn't, I could shrug my shoulders and say, "Maybe another day." It prompted a more genuine response even if I didn’t really want to talk about it. And he genuinely cared. And it was one of the first lessons I got in being genuine with my responses. And that words matter. 

As a young adult I had a friend who was one of the most insightful regarding my emotions. They could tell when something was wrong sometimes before I had come to admit it myself. I learned not to filter my responses with words like "Fine" with them because there was guaranteed to be a follow up question like "Why just fine?" or "What does fine mean?" or a straight up "What's wrong?" And we had a policy of answering any question honestly and genuinely. No dodging or filtering allowed. So I knew I'd have to answer the question anyway. 

I won't claim that that was a perfect or ideal policy necessarily. But it taught me the value of being genuine and authentic with my responses because I value when people are genuine and authentic with me, and when I can be that with someone else.

More than anything, I value honesty and communication. I like when people update me when a plan changes. I like when people communicate their boundaries to me instead of waiting until I’ve crossed one a few too many times. I like when people take the time to send a text or an email that is longer than a few words. I like having conversations with people. I like when people take the time to have those conversations with me. That makes me feel loved and wanted. I like when people are willing to ask me questions instead of dancing around or ignoring a subject. I like when people feel comfortable sharing things about themselves with me. I feel loved when people are willing to share their sad and not just their happy and let me see beyond the rose-colored version of their lives they freely portray to others.

I also think that when people are genuine, we’re better off mental-health-wise. Imagine a world where people freely portrayed more than just the nice sweet happy moments. Where people said “not amazing” instead of “fine” when asked “how are you doing?” Imagine feeling less awful about not feeling happy, because you knew and understood that you were not alone in that feeling—that it was normal to be less than perfectly happy all the time. I know that feeling alone and abnormal in my sadness has certainly never helped me. Imagine a world where the world felt more rosy, simply because we took off the glasses forcing people to pretend it was.