4 Reasons You’re Not “Fine”: The dangers of making do, instead of making a fuss

What are we really saying when we say everything’s “fine?” Probably a lot more than we realize. It’s time to toss aside the niceties and get honest—because the cost of pretending may come at too steep a price. In this article, discover four reasons you should not make do with doing fine, and learn some questions that will help you push past it to something better.

If I asked you how your day was, what would you say?

What about if I asked you about your work? Your love life? Your health?

If the answer is fine, my next question is: Is it really?

Here’s why: Fine is usually a dead giveaway that things are anything but. Tolerable? Endurable? Not going to kill you? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean they’re great or that you must be expected to keep them that way.

Fine is a tight-lipped word. It has its arms crossed. If you were to draw it, it would be a face with a straight line for a mouth.

The word, at least colloquially, has undergone a serious cultural depreciation. Its original meaning is to be of high or highest quality—fine fabrics, fine dining. But what used to mean really quite good is now a stand-in for barely acceptable, just OK. If something’s fine, it’s likely not remarkable, amazing, or outstanding. Not even close.

“Fine,” may seem like a harmless word, but it’s actually a slippery slope to rationalizing things you’re not good with at all. And when we make a habit of telling ourselves that fine is as good as it gets, we make a practice of being less than honest with ourselves, and with everyone else.

What You Really Mean When You Say Everything’s Fine

When someone says they’re ‘fine,’ it’s usually a sign that they’re not fine at all. It's often used as a protective mechanism, and it works.

“Fine” tends to mask—and reveal. Usually it means someone doesn’t want to explore the topic further, she told me. Though it can often mean someone unconsciously does want to be questioned about it.

So why do we say things are fine when they’re not? A million reasons, and here are just a few:

–We don’t want to make a fuss

–We don’t want to draw attention to something we ourselves are not ready to address

–We don’t want to seem ungrateful or unappreciative

–We don’t want to be “a problem”

–We don’t want unsolicited advice which may make us feel even worse

–We know that if we admit things are not fine, then we may have to change something

(Read more on why you haven’t found your voice yet.)

Four Reasons Not to Stop at “Fine” — and Push Past It Instead

There are just as many, if not more (and bigger) risks you take by not questioning “fine,” including:

REASON ONE: If you accept “fine”, you’ll create a habit — and enforce an upper limit.

Suppressing your actual feelings instead of dealing with the discontent is going to come at a cost—bigger than any single circumstance: We may get accustomed to shushing ourselves.

Not only that, but you could begin to believe that this truly is as good as it can get, as it will ever get. You could begin to believe that you don’t need anything better than fine, and that you should be grateful with what you have. This is a way of policing an upper limit—and all but guaranteeing you won’t surpass it.

Saying things are “fine” is how we talk ourselves out of big goals—and better lives.

Think about the comparison with being “nice.” We may say someone’s a “nice” person and assume they just are that thing (just like we might assume our lives are inherently just fine). But that’s not true, necessarily.

Nice is not a personality trait; it's a behavior. It's a way of acting and behaving to avoid tension with others.  Unlike, say, kindness, which springs from generosity, compassion. Niceness is a learned behavior, a conditioned response. 

It’s not too big a leap to see the connection between being nice and saying things are perfectly fine. This, too, is a learned behavior, and one which undermines real connection.

REASON TWO: If you pretend to be “fine,” you’ll end up annoyed with other people.

Ever find yourself angry at the people in your life for no good reason—and then realize you were mad at them for not meeting or addressing a need that you never actually expressed?

If you pretend things are fine, there are consequences: Friction. Frustration. A festering resentment. If we do not acknowledge where things are NOT fine, we create a rift that gets harder and harder to mend.

Again: You can be perfectly nice—and deeply dissatisfied (in fact, show me someone who’s almost too nice and I’ll show you someone who’s real good at masking how they actually feel).

I can measure my own level of happiness by how annoyed I get with strangers on the streets of New York. My impatience and rage mirrors just how unhappy I am about something else entirely.

(Having trouble figuring out what your purpose is? Ask yourself these three questions for creating clarity.)

REASON THREE: If others think you’re “fine,” you could miss an opportunity for intimacy and connection.

Fine has “closed-door” energy. When you feel yourself defaulting to “fine,” simply because it seems easier, it’s worth challenging it. Rather than “ruin” things; you may tap a whole new kind of connection.

When Tegan Zeolla-Harcourt moved in with a new roommate, they were perfectly nice with each other. But as the weeks and months wore on, they hadn’t gotten past small talk. When one would ask the other how work was, the response was usually, “It was fine.”

One night Tegan broke the pattern. “When I asked her how work was, she said fine. I responded, ‘I don’t feel like it was fine. What really happened?’ ” What ensued was a rich and meaningful conversation that changed their relationship. From then on, they agreed that they wouldn’t say “fine” when they didn’t mean it, and if they did, would find out what was really going on.

REASON FOUR: If you think you’re “fine”, nothing will change.

This may be the biggest risk of all. Because if you’re truly not ok with what’s happening in your life — what you’re doing, who you’re working with, who you’re sleeping with — you may keep doing it.

“Fine” is not a word of expansion, but contraction, and so the more you say it, and tell yourself it’s true, the smaller things feel, and the more you’ll feel the sharp edges of that discontent.

If you’re willing to rationalize where you are right now, in an effort to neutralize the discomfort, it may mean you’re not willing to consider changing it. And denying that you’re uncomfortable is not the same as comfort.

You may even begin to believe that you can’t. But you can. It’s the one thing that IS in your power to do.

How to Push Past Fine: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself Right Now

No one’s saying you “can’t” use the word fine; all I’m saying is that words have power. It’s worth noting how and when you say it.

Here are some good questions to ask yourself to get beyond “fine.”

1| What does fine even mean to you?

2 | What thoughts keep coming up (and you keep pushing down)?

3 | If you could change one little thing, what would it be?

4 | If you could change one big thing, what would it be?

5 | If you admit things are not fine, who are you afraid you’ll hurt?

6 | What’s the worst thing that could happen if you admitted you weren’t happy?

7 | What’s the best thing that could happen?

One critical thing to remember is that you can have a happy, full, fulfilling life and also not be fine with everything. (You also don’t have to be younger, or more talented, or have oodles of time.)

You can also love people deeply and be less than thrilled with what they’re doing or what’s happening with your relationship. You can love your work and not be OK with the hours, the pay.

In fact, an even better way to look at it is that if you really DO love and want to love these things fully and passionately, you owe it to yourself not to throw it in a hamper labeled “fine.” They deserve the highest form of attention, energy, and love, even if it means changes need to be made.

And you don’t have to upend everything today, tender your resignation, or move out this instant.

The most important thing is to be willing to simply unpack what’s happening, to acknowledge it. The change can happen when you’re ready, and that doesn’t necessarily mean today.