I don’t know about you, but when I am out in the world, no matter what else is going on in my day, when someone asks (out of politeness or social convention), “How are you?” My answer is almost without question, and despite whatever else is going on, “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”
Or some variation: “I’ve got no complaints!” or “I’m well…so glad it’s (insert day here…usually Friday or Saturday)!” And the thing is that of course, quite often, I’m not “fine”. I almost always have a grievance of some type or degree, and while I am always grateful for a weekend, they aren’t always easy or relaxing, either. They are filled with fun things, but also obligations and tasks that are getting constantly tacked on to a long list of other tasks.
So what am I saying? I’m saying that I often flat out lie when someone asks me how I am.
Now in fairness, I have actually told the cashier at my grocery store that I was “Awful, thanks for asking. How about you?” And the reality is that this does not yield a productive or useful response. When I’ve tried this more honest approach I have gotten a look of mild panic. Innocent cashier on auto-pilot does not know what to say. They certainly can’t make my awfulness different, and I am guessing it’s not the very best day of their lives either. So where does this leave us, if we are in the world and struggling along, and no one is seeing us? What if being seen is the very thing we need most to move forward, to feel a little better, and to restore our faith in humanity (not to overstate things…)?
I think we trust the world to rise and meet us.
I often talk to people about this very thing. The fact is that no one is “fine” all the time. If you are living and interacting and taking chances, you also hit obstacles, feel frustrated, and lose out sometimes. It is inevitable. And we all have our “inner circle” of trusted friends and loved ones. But you know what? There is a whole world of people, waking up each day, showing up, and interacting with perfect strangers. And we all hold heaviness. We all have obstacles. We are so much more alike than we are different. So I am wondering why we don’t better utilize the world we move around in to help us feel connected. I am wondering why we don’t offer more honesty, thereby giving those in our lives (even strangers) permission to be more honest, too?
I have a theory about the world around us. It is a simple one. “Theory” is actually a little lofty for this simple idea that I think is really just what is true. I think if we trust the world with our hearts, it will quite often rise to meet us. I actually have more examples of this than I can count, but here’s one I’d like to share from just a few months ago.
It was a Sunday, and despite having the potential to be an easy, relaxing day, it had been somewhat stressful. General life stuff, a few difficult interactions, and then I decided to run out and knock some stuff off that ever-growing list of mine. So I went to get a car wash, where I had to wait no less than half an hour to even get started. Then I got gas, and decided to put air in my front tire which was a little low. As I was putting air in, I noticed a nail in the very recently replaced tire. Hmph.
So then I went off to Trader Joes, which is actually a bit of a luxury for me to do on a weekend. I am often running off at lunch, picking up two or three things at a time, but I rarely have the opportunity to leisurely move through the store, thoughtfully placing things for the coming week in my basket. So. I go through the store (which was an absolute chaotic mess at 4pm on a Sunday), only being elbowed in the face once, after tripping on a dog (no doubt a service animal!), and having someone accidentally steal my cart. Totally relaxing. If I lived in a cartoon, by the time I got up to the check-out, I would have had a dark cloud penciled over my head.
The cashier was very nice. He asked how I was. “I’m ok”, I replied. But when I put my credit card in the reader, it didn’t work. So he had me try it again, and again, and by the fourth time, I was locked out. I hadn’t brought another form of payment, and I was feeling very, very upset. I had to go just off to the side and sit for ten minutes, watching everyone else effortlessly cruising through the checkout. I felt bruised. Not angry, not hostile. Just so…defeated. So I decided to come clean. “You know,” I told him, “I have just had a really rough day. Everything is harder than it should be and I’m feeling beat up. I just needed something to go right.”
And can I tell you something? Everything changed.
The lady offering ginger ale samples wandered over and poured me a cold glass. The cashier was a little more kind. He apologized and promised me everything would be ok. He called the manager over, who couldn’t make anything different, but acknowledged that we did everything “right” and I just had to wait. He shook my hand. When my ten minutes were up, I strolled back to the check-out, stuck my card in the reader, and lo and behold, it went through! The ginger ale lady cheered before wandering over and giving me a hug. My cashier gave me a high five and let out a triumphant “Woohoo!” They didn’t carry me out of there with a laurel around my head, riding on their shoulders, but they may as well have. My entire energy and mood was changed. And none of it would have happened had I not trusted their ability to rise to meet me. To be human. Compassionate. Kind.
I could have just sat brooding for ten minutes. I could have gotten sad or angry or just descended into my own sense of defeat. But I decided to be honest. Not burdensome, not over-informing, but honest. I decided to be human. To let another human know that I knew I shouldn’t feel so upset, but that this was not the only thing to go wrong that day. And while I wouldn’t always use this technique, there was something about the young man ringing me up that told me I could at least try to connect. As a human who has had bad days to another human having a bad day. And even though it was just Trader Joe’s, it changed my entire outlook.
I guess my point is that we don’t trust everyone with everything, and we shouldn’t. We don’t spill our guts out to everyone we meet. But if you never open your heart, the world can never rise to meet you. And if you never trust it, it never will.