Tagged

Doing Okay

'How are you?'
'Doing okay'.
'How's the job going?'
'Just fine'
'And your health..?'
'Okay'
'Do you realise how often we Indians use the word 'okay'?'
'I know.'
'I wonder why?'
'It's just a way of saying, even though I'm not doing that great, my job is getting routined and my health is very bad, I will not complain. It's called Indian detachment.'
'Yeah, but I guess that's okay...'

It's this state of unacheivable balance where you want to believe you're doing fine. And if you keep saying this to yourself long enough, it actually happens. The ripples go away and it's stll waters again, running deep of course. But some kind of faith manifests itself in just not trying too hard, but pretending that yes, nothing's wrong. The Westerners would call it 'fooling your psyche'. For us, it's a magic placebo.

I went to church yesterday. Stood in a corner, and listened to a sermon, and though I don't agree with most of it, I did not question it. Acceptance comes with acceptance. Some words I remember though, from a hymn that talked about courage. Courage comes with waiting, courage comes with loving, courage comes with not hating the ones who hurt you, courage comes with wiping your own tears.
I say, Courage is a two-headed snake. It bites you in the ass when you say you have more of it than you can handle. But in spite of all going wrong, there's happiness in knowing you have that courage. And the ones who lack that courage can run away from the snake. Someday it will catch up with them.
The traffic is apalling, the cold getting worse, the love of your life a screw-up, the house all dirty, the laziness colossal, the month passing slowly..
Everything else is okay.