how are you?

how are you?

you must have just woken up to another cold morning. work's cancelled again due to the storm, but it's not raining as hard as yesterday, and the winds are much quieter too. your thoughts seem to have left you in your sleep, but you get up and grab the book you slept on last night. in the middle of the page, stirring thoughts come to you but you shove them aside. you go back to reading. after some time, you get up and get yourself some leftover food for breakfast. oatmeal in cocoa. you eat just because you need to have breakfast. then you go back to what you're reading, you remember that it's a thursday and another week is almost over. the phone rings. it's your friend asking you the favor to help her and another friend in their research proposal. you oblige. you have nothing planned for the day anyway, except wanting to get hold of the tickets you reserved for a series of film screenings. then you close your book and you start working on one of the jigsaw puzzles in the living room. from the time you woke up, up to now, you seem to be very occupied.

but then i ask you, how are you really?

you must say you're pretty cool and steady. you just quit a job you believe was not for you and what now? for the past months you have yourself occupied with a lot of things, some of them by choice, others out of duty. your ready response would always be you're okay, resisting the thought, and the reality that you actually aren't. you may be okay but not totally. you try to get over the denial and you manage to face the truth. you say that's a step forward. you can deal with the truth.

but then, it could be that you only think you're not okay. you have always been the eternal worrier. and you know that everything is largely a matter of perspective.

"To worry is a sin. Only one sort of worry is permissible; to worry because one worries." -- (Hasidic Saying). lucky are those who have mastered the ability of keeping their worries away. they say that 90% of the things you worry about, do not actually happen. worrying only saps the energy away from what could have been a perfect day. instead, you can channel your energies to happier and more enjoyable things like reading a book, preparing a fancy dinner for people at home, doing things you have always put off for another day. (perhaps those jigsaw puzzles that have been sitting under the table for quite some time now). when worry creeps in, take a step back, breathe in and haul it to the trash bin.

let the thoughts settle, and perhaps when asked again, how are you? you'd be more sure about how you really are.