Everything Is Going To Be Okay. No.


Musings / Friday, September 7th, 2018

I had an interesting conversation with my friend on Skype. Now, I don’t message much on any messaging platform. I hate hate hate messaging on the phone. The only time I can actually message is if I have my laptop. I have lost the ability to type much on the phone except short text messages through the day with another friend. But Skype is easier as I use it on the laptop, and well, no one else is on that platform to disturb me with constant group chats/Good mornings or weird memes. Skype is just for 3 people in my life – none of who are in India.

So, yesterday I shared a song that I told my friend to listen with the headphones on and with her eyes closed. She did.

And then she told me this:

My friend: Oh my god what a soundtrack! I felt uplifted. Hopeful. The thought – everything is going to ok  – kept moving in my head. It kind of washed over me you know.

Me: Why do we say that “everything is going to be ok?

Friend: Because I guess we sometimes feel stressed or have patches of uncertainties. And sometimes just saying things will be fine is reassuring even though they are not at that moment. It’s a bit like twisting your face into your smile and then feeling the smile spread inside later.

Me: No. This is the problem in life.


What’s the problem, you ask? The idea that everything is going to be okay. We spend much of our lives thinking we will okay with some stage in life. We define this vaguely or specifically. “I will be okay once I graduate. I will be okay once I get married. I will be okay once I go abroad. I will be okay if I go on a vacation. I will be okay once I have a kid. I will be okay once I get a job. I will be okay once I get ANOTHER job/manager/team. I will be okay once I have money. I will be okay when I buy that house. I will be okay once I heal. I will be okay if I am healthy.”

Ah, look at us! We will reach 70 years of age and probably say, “I will be okay once I am dead.”

What are we doing to ourselves? That cycle of things to do in life never ends. We are never going to be okay. Stay with that, will you?

So, here’s what I suggest: Don’t tell yourself these damaging words. Don’t say, “Everything is going to be okay.”

Yes. Those are damaging. It’s some pop-psych thought that we think gets us through the tough situations in life. It tells us that hope exists. Hope is beautiful, the winged chariots of tomorrow that beat in our hearts, but hope also damages us for the present. It keeps us waiting for a moment that may never come. And it won’t. There are no moments but this one. Just tell yourself this, instead:

Everything IS okay.

Take a deep breath with me. It’s okay. Whatever it is that we have in our life, whatever we are struggling with, we are okay. This is grateful acceptance for this day, this moment, this phase in our life. We are beautiful. Our lives are pathetically beautiful. Embrace the discomfort right now without wanting it to be anything else. Kiss those fears. Hug the difficulties. Accept the chaos of now. Navigate the churning in your stomach. Be there for people. Accept love. Give love. Life is somehow present tense and future imperfect. This is our grammar. Our words. Our language. All compressed into the acceptance of now.

This is life. This is who we are. Right now. At this moment. It’s taken a beautiful orchestra from the Universe to bring you to this point- this mess, this chaos, this beauty – all of it. It’s you. It’s okay. It’s a beautiful messy okay. It doesn’t mean that you ignore the problems in life – no. It means that you are okay with the problems too.

Everything is okay.

Say that. For me. :-). With me.

5 Replies to “Everything Is Going To Be Okay. No.”

  1. Read it somewhere “never build home on a foreign land”… Seems to be similar to future thinking on dwells in mostly and actions are taken in present like as if life will happen as planned. Like you told me too, to start living in moment 🙂

    I loved those lines written as beautiful orchestra to listen from nature

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