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Why I Say I am Fine

Jon Tillman | Filed Under: Essays | Tagged: First Published: 2024-12-11 | Last Updated: 2024-12-11 Status: finished(?) | Audience: people who know me | Confidence: expert Word Count: 1106 | Reading Time: 6 minutes

Recently someone forwarded me the following question asked on Reddit: Men, why do you often say you’re fine even when you’re not?

Well, I can’t answer for all men, but I can answer for myself. My answer is a little longer than people on Reddit can pay attention for, and I don’t really interact with that site much anyway, so I thought maybe it would be of interest to someone else to read my reasoning about the topic.

First, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that your supposition is correct, and I am not fine even though I claim to be. Let’s go ahead and let you call me a liar and get away with it. Let’s assume I am not fine; that something is bothering me, that there is a problem that I need to address. Let’s ignore that I might be tired, hungry, in temporary physical pain, distracted, or any of the other temporary states that might make it look like I am not fine.

What Does ‘Fine’ Mean?

The first thing we need to address is that you might not know what the word ‘fine’ means. Fine is a state of being in which things are good enough, but not excellent.1 It is when things are acceptable, reasonable given the circumstances, passable, and adequate. It does not mean that everything is great, amazing, exactly as I wish, good enough to blithefully ignore, or perfect. It means it’s fine. Just fine. If you want to know if things are great, don’t ask if they are fine. The English language is capable of great specificity and granularity, and that is one of the best things about it. Use it correctly please.

Why Am I Not ‘Fine’?

Now that we have established that I might indeed be not a liar and using the term correctly, let’s talk about when I am not actually fine. In what circumstances do I find that things are no longer acceptable or reasonable?

The other 5% of my problems come primarily from expecting other people to not be exactly who they have shown me that they are, but that is a topic for another day. I am comfortable in saying that 95% of my problems, throughout my life so far, are caused by me lacking one of three things:

  • Time
  • Money
  • Capacity

If you want me to open up and talk about root causes of problems, then this portion is for you.

What Causes My Problems?

Either I do not have the time to address all of the responsibilities in my life because the list of urgent tasks is too long, the money to pay someone else to address some of those tasks for me because I am not infinitely wealthy, or the capacity to address those responsibilities because some outside force is acting to prevent me from doing so.

Research has shown that the happiest people spend money in order to get time, and less happy people spend time in order to get money.2 While it should be blindingly obvious that paying people to do things for you is more fun than spending all your time earning money to pay rent,

Time

I can lack time to address pressing needs for a variety of reasons. Among them are:

  • My children require my attention right now and their needs trump mine.
  • My task list is too long because of general entropy, bad luck, or underestimating the time it will take me to accomplish prior tasks.
  • The weather may have created a situation in which multiple tasks which require dry conditions and will take multiple days are urgent at the same time, during the rainy season.

    Money

    I am happy to report that I have very few problems in my life that could not be solved by the application of money. The vast majority of things on my TODO list are there simply because I cannot afford to do them in the quickest way possible. Some examples:

  • I cannot afford to hire a job out, and thus must first learn how to do it adequately, then ever so slowly work at it until it somewhat approximates the job a competent tradesman could have achieved in 10% of the time.
  • I cannot find the part I want to achieve a project and must order one from abroad or have one fabricated. This is significantly more expensive than it would otherwise be and must wait on appropriate funding.
  • I prefer not to take unnecessary risks with a machine I cannot afford to replace, and thus need to think of a new, less expensive, way to achieve something that would be cheap and easy with a more reliable car, truck, tractor, saw, or mixer.

    Capacity

    I lack the capacity in some way to address the most pressing thing (or just several of the things) on my list. This can be for various reasons beyond the restraints of money discussed above:

  • I may be injured and thus physically unable to do what needs done.
  • I may be in the middle of a project that blocks other projects: waiting on delivery of wheel bearings means I have less cars available to the household than normal, which means certain other projects become subordinated to other peoples needs to go to work, or school, or buy groceries.
  • I may know what needs to be addressed to fix a problem, but not have the technical skills necessary to do so confidently. Whether that results in moving an important task into the waiting for money category or creates a new task of learn to do something is not really important - both things reflect a lack of capacity.

    Who Can Solve My Problems?

    Let’s rephrase the question asked at the beginning to be closer to what I believe is actually being asked: Why won’t you talk to me about what is bothering you and take my advice on how to fix it?

References

  1. Cambridge Dictionary of Essential American English. (2024) FINE definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary. Retrieved December 11, 2024, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/fine

  2. Whillans, A.V., Elizabeth W. Dunn, Paul Smeets, Rene Bekkers, and Michael I. Norton. “Buying Time Promotes Happiness.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 32 (August 8, 2017): 8523–8527.