GREETINGS

               HOW ARE YOU?                                                                                                                HOOWDY-DO?  

        HOW YA DOIN'? 

                                                HEY! WHAT'S UP?  

HOW'S IT GOIN'?                                                                                                                       HOW YA BEEN?  

There are a lot of ways to greet someone.  And the expected reply is something akin to FINE. GOOD. OKAY.  It's just a greeting, after all.  Not really meant to elicit a detailed account of how you really feel.

Some years ago we went to church with a man who, everytime I greeted him with something like, "How are you doing today, Chuck?", his invariable answer was "INCREDIBLE!"

One day I said to him, "Get out of town, Chuck!  You can't be INCREDIBLE every time!"  Then he told me this secret of being able to say that EVERY single time.   It was that he might be either incredibly good, or incredibly bad, or incredibly happy...or incredibly sad.  Nobody needed to know.  They just needed to know "INCREDIBLE", and that usually set the tone for their day, too.

Years later when I worked for United Airlines and was the greeter for the flight, I used that little secret. If someone said they were terrific or super or outstanding--or any number of superlatives--I would then say, "Wow! Then we're twins because I am incredible!"  That usually brought a chuckle, not only to the person I was talking to, but also to the people right behind that person.  On some occasions I actually shared the story of Chuck always being incredible.  It was a good anecdote and gave people pause about the aspects of a positive greeting.

My uncle's consistant answer to that "How are you question?" was always something like "fair to middling" or "60/40" in spite of living with chronic pain.  No one ever knew how bad some of those days really were. Even in the hospital where he battled cancer to the very end, it was always the same.

I recently read about another man who had suffered in great pain during a lingering illness that finally took his life, too.  Instead of reciting all the misery he was in, he continued with the same reply he had always used throughout his life in answer to the question of how he was doing.  "Many things are going well."

These have been good lessons for me who is a complainer and a murmurer. I've often said I can do ANY hard job if I can complain every step of the way.  But no one wants to hear that.  It's off-putting.  So I have determined that I can do better.  I have MUCH to be thankful for.  And MANY blessings.  However, in spite of some setbacks and some challenges at this particular time which are truthfully really pesky, I am determined to begin 2021 with a new and more positive attitude which reflects the goodness of God and the many, many tender mercies that come to me on a daily basis.

"How are you doing today, Georgia?"  

"Many things are going well!"