When 'Fine' Became the New Normal (And Why That's a Problem)

Fine is a lie we tell.

Not a malicious lie. A protective one.

"How are you?" "Fine."

Translation: Tired. Sore. Running on fumes. But functional enough to keep going.

We've lowered the bar so far that "not falling apart" counts as success.

Here's what happened:

Somewhere between childhood and now, we stopped expecting to feel good. We started treating pain as a personality trait. Exhaustion as a badge of honor. Stress as the price of admission to adulthood.

We talk about our bodies like they're betraying us.

"My back is killing me."

"My body won't cooperate."

"I'm falling apart."

As if the body—this remarkable system that's been keeping us alive without us even thinking about it—suddenly turned villain.

But what if it's the opposite?

What if pain is information, not betrayal?

What if exhaustion is a message, not a character flaw?

What if your body has been trying to tell you something important, and you've been too busy pushing through to listen?

Your body doesn't speak English. It speaks in sensations.

Tension. Fatigue. Discomfort. Pain.

These aren't attacks. They're communications.

The question isn't "Why is my body doing this to me?"

The question is "What is my body trying to tell me?"

We spend our whole lives in these bodies.

We get one.

And yet most of us treat it like a car we're planning to trade in, running it into the ground, ignoring the warning lights, adding duct tape when something breaks.

What if this year, instead of fighting it, we listened?

What if we got curious instead of critical?

What if "fine" stopped being good enough? What if this was the year we remembered what "good" actually feels like?

What if we became teammates with our bodies instead of opponents?

What if we trusted that our bodies are working for us, not against us?

Now that would be fine!

If you could feel good again, what would that look like? Drop a comment. Let's talk about it.