How many ways are there to ask “How Are You Today?”
“How are you feeling?” is the worst. Feelings come and go like the wind. No they come and go like a tornado or hurricane. What we ate affects our feelings. What we say on tv. What we remembered from something at gradeschool when we were kids comes to mind. Usually upsetting stuff. Or maybe we pushed too hard today. The list goes on. So how we feel is suspect and inconsistent. Ask us an hour later and it is probably different. Qualitative questions are fine but the answers are suspect.
“How is your body is it operating within acceptable parameters?”. This one I like. It is more accepting. I can answer that: “I figured that I could do X for Y hours, and I did, so that is great.” Or “I could only do Z hours, so I took a longer nap in the afternoon.” Or “I could work more than that, I had enough energy.”. These are mostly quantitative questions and are pretty level.
Most questions lie between those two sign posts. What to ask, then?
Some questions have a complete and total answer. Does ‘Love’ need a question about how much? No Love is Love. It is selfless, complete, and total. Same goes for “Are you a whole person?”. Yes you are. That is the only answer, you see.
What about “how are you today?”. I don’t like that question right now. I like “What did you do today? What are you doing tomorrow? If you didn’t like something today then what is your plan to change it tomorrow”.
This might seem a little cold hearted but there is an important clause here: sometimes I just cry like an innocent baby and say “The world hates me give me a hug so I can feel better!!!”. The good thing is that I am actually asking for something. That is what makes it work. That returns control to my situation. Who am I asking? Doesn’t matter. Maybe myself, God, friends, family, and I consider us here to be family.
That simple act of even asking for something, brings control and duty back into your hands, and inspires and spurs you on for whatever is your next step forward.
Asking for help doesn’t make you weak: it gives you practice to grow the strength or climb over the obstacle in front of you.
Every step no matter how small matters. And asking is one of them.
So ask away: we are in this together.