When you ask yourself “how are you,” don’t give yourself the hallway answer.

Fine is a social convenience. It keeps a corridor exchange down to five seconds, which is what it exists for, and the only problem is that it becomes the default answer even when nobody else is in the room. You ask yourself, you answer fine out of habit, and the actual state of things goes unexamined for weeks. The habit is efficient and it hides a lot.

Ask yourself once this week and refuse the short answer. Name three specific things: what is heavy, what is going well, what you are dodging. Specific is the only version worth the question.