Are You Okay?

“Are you okay?”

It’s a common question—one most of us shrug off with a “Yeah, I’m fine,” an “I’m just tired,” or a quick pivot: “How are you doing?”

We hear it while passing people we aren’t going to know for long. At work. In hallways. At the grocery store. Most of the time, it doesn’t feel like a question we could answer honestly—especially when the honest answer is that we feel like we’re breaking inside.

But I want you to start listening to the voice inside you when somebody asks.

If you feel yourself getting angry or annoyed at the question Are you okay?, that might be a pretty good indication that you are not fucking okay.

And it is okay not to be okay in this fucking world.

We live in chaos—politically, economically, and socially. Our leaders manufacture and exploit division. We live on a ship that is on fire, floating in the middle of the ocean, while people argue over who started it, who deserves a life jacket, and whether the smoke is even real.

How could you not feel some of that stress?

Then we have the news media harping on every terrible thing that happens. Every death. Every accident. Every act of violence. Every disaster. Every new reason to be afraid.

“If it bleeds, it leads.”

That isn’t only because of the media. It is also because of our attention. Fear holds us. Outrage activates us. Death and destruction keep us watching.

Sometimes ignoring all of it feels like the only way to survive.

It is easy to tell yourself, I’m going to ignore this and power through. Sometimes that is even necessary for a little while. But we have to learn the difference between temporarily setting something down and pretending it doesn’t exist.

We have to learn the difference between avoiding our pain and approaching it differently.

If you feel a sense of dis-ease with the world around you, there is almost always something you can do. You may not be able to solve the enormous problem directly in front of you. You may not be able to fix the political system, stop a war, repair your relationship today, erase your grief, cure your illness, or force somebody to understand you.

But you may be able to solve a different problem.

You may be able to make one small change that opens another door.

That idea is part of something I’ve been developing called The Swerve.

A swerve is an intentional change in direction when the way you have been thinking, behaving, or relating has become repetitive and stopped producing progress. It isn’t avoidance. Avoidance turns away from the problem. A swerve keeps the problem in view but approaches it differently.

First, you recognize the loop you are caught in. Then you try to understand what that loop has been doing for you—because even harmful patterns often began as protection. You ask what you actually want your life to move toward. Then you make one meaningful departure from the pattern, observe what happens, and adjust.

You don’t need complete certainty before you move. Sometimes movement is what gives you the information that thinking alone cannot.

The swerve might not solve the original problem. It might reveal another layer beneath it. It might create a third path you couldn’t see while you were charging directly at the same locked door. It might simply make your life a little more sustainable, meaningful, safe, or honest.

Then you look at what happened. You keep what helped. You revise what didn’t. And, when necessary, you swerve again.

Not every problem can be defeated once and for all. Some have to be maintained. Some return in different forms throughout our lives. The daily work and the lifelong work are not separate.

The daily work is where the lifelong work lives.

So—are you okay?

You don’t have to tell everyone the whole truth.

But you should probably start telling it to yourself.