Throughout this life, believe it or not, we tend to get asked a lot of questions. Some of these questions are kind of obvious, others are complicated, and my favorite ones make you question yourself. You can be asked a number of terrible questions that range anywhere from, “How much do you weigh?” to, “Do you even lift bro?” Recently, I’ve been hearing a question repeated more times than I would ever like to hear. It’s not a terrible question, but it’s just something that I am not fond of being asked. That question is, "Are you okay?"
This is one of those questions that makes you question yourself. Except not in a good way. So, are you okay? Honestly, ask yourself that question, because you might not like the answer.
In no way am I trying to rain on your perfect life with these words. The reason I hate this question is because there is usually one honest answer, and that’s no. You are not okay. So then what? Well, you figure out what’s not okay. Unless you’re an optimist, then you’re probably about two fake smiles away from feeling just amazing.
Life is hard. And believe it or not, the second we come to this realization, we should allow ourselves about 10 business days out of every year to act like a drama queen. Yes, I know most of us don’t live in a third-world country and not all of us have it as bad as other around us, but that doesn’t make life any less hard for any individual. Sadness is a terrible side-effect of our mistakes and regrets, none of which feel any better with perspective.
So what am I saying? I’m saying that there are so many things most likely going on in your life for you not to be 100 percent okay. So when someone is asking this question, they’re either looking for a generic “yes,” or they already know that something isn’t okay. Don’t get me wrong, it’s thoughtful, but usually when someone is asking this, it seems like they’re pretending to care or just trying to get you to unload certain feelings that they’re looking for. Yeah, it’s a little twisted.
Sadly, I can’t think of an alternative to this question, nor do I want to, because I like to think that this question tells us more about the person asking it, rather than the answer they receive. So don’t be afraid of this question or completely oblivious to it, but be aware of its intent. Be mindful of how it might seem to be a yes or no question right away, but it could turn out to be a morbid realization. And what I want you to know is that not everything is meant to be okay, but that doesn’t mean everything is absolutely terrible in your life. Sometimes things are simply amazing, or just momentarily upsetting. No matter what, don’t let ‘Are you okay?’ be a question that someone else is asking you, but have it be something you ask yourself. For some people it tends to be easy to give a fake answer to someone who’s asking this to you, but it’s harder to lie to yourself.
