“I’M DOING ‘JUST RIGHT’”

A stock-in-trade little conversation exchange at the gas station window is to ask people how they are or “are doing”. It was one of these little openers that stimulated the “Keeping It Human” article on my “Authentic Customer Service” web site. (www.home.earthlink.net/~authenticcustomerservice/)

But when I am not feeling very good myself, especially if I am depressed, I shy away from using this question, because people are more likely then to return the question – and I don’t know what to say. It feels lousy to lie: “I’m fine”, “I’m good”, etc – these just aren’t true, and dishonesty does not really follow the path of “Authentic Customer Service”. But not using this icebreaker I seem to lose too much, in terms of really making contact with my customers.

And it also doesn’t feel right to complain, partly because most customers aren’t really ready for this kind of honesty. Sometimes, though, if they themselves open with some form of “lousy” – or ask me first, then reply that way – then it sometimes feels right to join them. “Hey, that really the honest answer for me”, etc.

But complaining doesn’t work for me on another level. I really do believe (though obviously not completely) that all is well – that there is no chaos, that there is a purpose for everything. From this perspective, there is nothing wrong with anything I may be feeling – it is all in divine order.

I also believe this business of nothing being wrong in a very specific way about my down moods. They drive me to introverting and particularly to writing. I not only identify myself as a writer, but at this moment in time I believe that I am meant to be really moving ahead on two writing projects. But there is so much inertia (including depression) and resistance (“Who are you to think you have so much to say?”, etc.) around this writing that I kind of think I need to do whatever I can to push ahead.

A lot of me does believe that my muse is calling me and that it is worth it to be driven, to be out of balance for a while in order to move these projects ahead – especially to get my “Radical Integrity” book finished and at least self-published, preferably within the next few months. (It really is mostly finished and needs very little more writing – more just editing and organizing. “Just”!)

Driven and out of balance worked for me with my doctoral dissertation – I really became a kind of nutcase for several months, pretty much giving up on any wider life while I pushed for completion. I had so much resistance to working on that mega-project that I still believe that I would not have finished it in any other way. So one particular meaning of “I’m doing just right” is that the depression I’m feeling may be just right, if it drives me to my desk and to writing.

So I’m experimenting with answering the various forms of the “How are you?” question with “Just right”. I’m not remembering to do it all the time, but I really am liking it when I do use it. It is sufficiently vague to include all kinds of internal states. Some people immediately get that and are drawn to it – one friend (who struggles a lot with depression herself) asked my permission to start using it (which I immediately gave - as if I had some kind of copyright on it).

If people misunderstand this phrase to mean “perfect” – which to me could mean much the same thing as “Just right”, but to them may mean beyond wonderful – I sometimes just let it stand, and sometimes clarify with something like, “That can mean a lot of things”. I think that, over time, I’m likely to do less of this clarifying and more of just letting it stand.