Fine is the New Failure: Raising the Bar on Your Life Satisfaction

For many of us women in our 40s and 50s, the word "fine" has become an all-too-familiar refrain when asked how we're doing. We reply with an automatic "I'm fine, thanks" when interacting with friends, grown children, colleagues, or even strangers making small talk. On the surface level, it seems like a simple, inoffensive response.

But let's take a deeper look at what that "I'm fine" may actually signify. Last week I posted a question on my Facebook feed asking what it meant and the replies included:

• “I’m fine” means my problems or feelings are less important than what others are going through.

• “I’m fine” means I don’t want to talk with you, specifically, about what I’m really dealing with deep down.

• For me it means “I’m not ready to talk” whether I’m I still trying to process it or I’m not sure how I feel about it just yet.

• It means "I'm dealing" or I don't really want to talk about it

• "I'm fine" was/is that programmed response that for me might mean:

  - I don't trust that I can be honest with you about how I feel

  - I don't think you care how I feel

  - I'm afraid to tell you how I'm feeling

  - I'm afraid to admit to myself how I am feeling

• “I’m FINE”! Frustrated, Insecure, Not Happy, Emotional!

• “I’m fine”…comes to mean I’ve become accustomed to the chaos, lowered expectations, failed expectations, etc

• I always think of “fine” as “not great but getting through” and perhaps “not terrible enough to have to talk about”.

When we reflexively answer that we're just "fine," we're effectively giving ourselves permission to settle for a life where we just go with the flow. We dismissively shrug off those deeper feelings of restlessness, yearning, and faded passion as unworthy of being voiced or prioritized.

• I’m fine means exactly the opposite. I’m not fine, I’m probably pissed off, and struggling. To me it means stuffing all my feelings and putting me aside.

Being chronically "just fine" is arguably one of the most underrated spiritual crises we can face. It signals that we've surrendered and stopped striving for more rewarding ways of being. It's a quiet admission that we're willing to numb ourselves to potential joy, growth, and fulfillment for the sake of perceived comfort and convenience.

But at this stage in our lives, simply coasting in the emotional shallows of "fine" can be profoundly unfulfilling and soul-sucking. It disconnects us from our most essential selves - the radiant, passionate wisdom keepers we have the potential to become in our later years.

Staying stuck in relentless "fineness" means depriving ourselves and the world of our hard-won lived experiences (AND YOU KNOW we have many). It means putting aside our desires to learn, evolve, and contribute in meaningful ways. It means playing small and making peace with where we are at.

For our midlife years, this is far too great a tragedy to accept. We've weathered too many storms and reinvented ourselves too many times to resign ourselves to mere "fineness" at this stage. We deserve to not just quietly exist, but to truly thrive and realize our grandest visions.

So if perpetual "fineness" equates to a subtle form of spiritual failure, how can we raise our satisfaction bars? We start by getting radically honest with ourselves about what's really going on beneath the "I'm fines."

We tune inward and explore whether:

• Certain aspects of our lives or relationships need recalibration

• We're neglecting creative outlets, hobbies, or social connections

• Our self-care, health, and wellness routines need more prioritization

• Unhealed traumas, fears, or disappointments require compassionate inquiry

• Shifts in careers, living situations, or financial plans are due

From that grounded place of self-study, we can map actionable game plans for dismantling the "I'm fines" and rebuilding more joyous, meaningful, and satisfying ways of living. Each small step we take to align with what we are being called to creates momentum for increasingly bold transformations.

You know what?

We've earned the right to be spectacular. A life experience that ignites us and inspires others is exactly why we are here. Simply being "fine" hardly does justice to the warriors we've become through all our years' triumphs, tragedies and wisdom-seeking journeys.

So the next time someone asks how you're doing, pause before reflexively delivering that "I'm fine" party line. Slow down, tune inward, and ask yourself if that response rings 100% true. If it doesn't, feel empowered to share a more honest,vulnerable window into your lived experience.

Because a willingness to go beyond "fine" is nothing less than an act of radical self-reclamation and rebirth. It's the path to fulfilling our “This Is What A Badass Looks Like” potential setting positive and powerful examples for generations to come. (Can you say cycle breaking 101)!

Let's redefine "failure" as shackling ourselves to "fineness" and rise above that mediocre mindset once and for all. We've come too far to stay stuck in lives of wilted possibility.

This is our one gloriously fleeting chance to live, love,
and burn bright, in sacred rejection of "just fine."

______

~Judy Davis is on a mission to help you go from “I’m fine” to “never better” and mean it. She is a motivational speaker, published author and mental wellness mentor with information, products and books that are go to resources to help people reduce anxiety and stress so they can find balance in their lives.