Answering “How are you?”—Survey Results
Last month, I asked you all to take a survey sharing your top 3 most common responses to the question, “How are you?”
Your answers were predictable. But don’t confuse predictable with uninteresting, because what you had to say was fascinating.
First, the obvious stuff
As you might have guessed, three answers topped the charts: Fine, Good, Okay. Good and fine duked it out for first place. I gave everyone the opportunity to provide their three most common responses. Fine was the most common first response, but when you take the second and third responses into account, slightly more of you said Good. Okay was a distant third.
From there, the other most common answers were hanging in, doing well, and (my former go-to response) busy.
Next, the dark stuff
While a handful of you are full of sunshine (blessed, amazing, outstanding), many of you offer a little shade in your standard response … just a hint that things aren’t perfectly okay. Here’s some examples:
Tired
Meh
Fair to partly cloudy
I’ve been better
There were also some standard responses I’d rank as neutral: intentionally framed not to be positive or negative. These include:
Plugging along
Same ol, same ol
So-so
Not bad
A small handful of you practice brutal honesty about how you are: shitty. And one of you, who I suspect was not kidding, said your standard response was “info dump about my current trauma symptoms.”
We’re dealing with some stuff, people. And since most of us respond “good” or “fine” no matter how we’re doing, we’re practicing an understandable form of dishonesty.
But what surprised me most …
What surprised and pleased me the most were the personal emails I received from a handful of you, sharing your reflections on what the question “How are you?” means to you.
Trevor Heller wrote that he often said, "not bad,” until he realized that language presumed the baseline was bad. He started using a different and usually more positive response each day and noticed a change in how people responded—leading to what he perceived as a more positive vibe on his team at work.
Greg (name changed) wrote that starting around age 35, he began to notice that his friends and acquaintances were experiencing loneliness. “The loneliness is outright scary to see,” he said; it shows up in divorces, suicide attempts, social isolation. To counteract the loneliness, Greg takes questions like “how are you?” seriously.
Greg says, “I’ve taken it upon myself to just be as present as I possibly can, wherever I can.” (That’s a good New Year’s resolution, if you’re still looking for one.)
Despite this, Greg admits that when he’s struggling with his own energy levels, he defaults to three standard replies (Livin’ the Dream, Same Ol’ Same Ol’, Fighting the Good Fight)—all of which avoid more authentic responses.
So here’s a second resolution to consider …
What if, maybe 15% of the time, we answered the question “how are you?” with authentic vulnerability. It doesn’t have to involve sharing your trauma (though you could, if you’re with a safe person), but it can be a more fuller representation of reality.
Then you can follow up your answer with a new question—something designed to invite deeper knowing and a stronger relationship. Rachel David, for example, wrote me that she’s been test driving this question:
“What has made you hopeful lately?”
Rachel said at first she was disillusioned by the responses, but then people began to open up. They were finding hope in babies and self-love and new relationships.
What can you learn if you ask a different question?
Fine, good, okay tells us almost nothing about the person we’re talking with. If you want a real relationship, we may have to ask a different question.
