Okay

I wanted to start my time here with a bang. The only problem is, I didn't know what to write. That is, until a long time friend asked me a make or break question for himself...

"Do you think anyone is happy? Is anyone actually okay? Or does everyone just survive?"

You see, this particular friend is never serious. He's a bro of the U.S. Marines. His first tour in the Middle East, the only person he seen die was an American girl who drunkenly fell from a balcony. Yet it only bothered him to the extent that you would be bothered when a really distant relative passes, except, he watched her fall. He tried to get her back inside before she started her descent. He was as close to her as anyone could possibly get to a person. Needless to say, this friend can be lost for the correct, (acceptable?), emotions for situations.

So here it is, my "bang." This friend will only ask me these kinds of questions because well, it's very unlikely to get a sugarcoated response from me. I am going to give him a rather blunt and kind of bitchy answer and then expand with the philosophical flourish that I paid $20+ grand to develop. So what was my answer?My answer is maybe.

I will start off by saying that I have hit the point in my life where mental breakdowns are frequent. Being a female approaching her late 20's, holding an education in behavior and theories, and a deep desire to know more than ever necessary for many lifetimes.

Midst these breakdowns, the last thing I want someone to tell me is, "It's going to be okay." Well, no fucking shit. As long as I am still breathing and a roof remains over my head things will be O.K.

Okay is satisfactory. Okay is acceptance. Okay is permissible to live. When I'm down so low my only answer is a hard reset with a walk into the lake, I do not want to be told, you will continue to live this way.

I truly believe, unless you severely live below the normal for your society, that you are okay. I also believe that from okay, if only momentary, you can be happy with a small change.

However, if you do not continue to work on being more than okay, okay will catch up with you. Okay doesn't have legs to run or swim, nor does it have wings to fly. Okay is a simple balance in your life. Okay has a natural tendency, a habit to be in a homeostatic state.

If we spend our time playing games with friends where cutting one another down is the norm, whether it is out of frustration or to get a laugh, that is that habitual state for you. To go out in public and not be rude and in fact be polite, the polar opposite, takes work.

To not be okay, you have to tip the scales. You have to put work into not being a habit to your own life. These changes, even minute are work and they require some amount of effort. A stubborn girl, like myself, who refuses to use her money on a temporary moment of happiness by buying a cheeseburger can take back the piled up bottles and use that unaccounted cash to buy herself a greasy treat.

A treat that will make her more than okay even if just until she makes the final bite.

I advise you though, being anything but okay can be dangerous. To be on the opposite side of the scale comes about the same way. It takes effort, but much less, it can even be the easy way out.

Say that girl looking for happiness in a bun did this every time she was on the lower side of okay. A small effort over and over, instead of one larger effort to work on the underlying problem that may be causing her to sit on that low.

She's changing her okay and creating more underlying problems. If she keeps it up her okay becomes different, so much so that her comparative society becomes anew. This is a bare-bones idea for how addiction can develop before an underlying disease can start.

For those who chase the higher side, they also can become addicts. They're addicted to not being okay. They're addicted to happiness. These people will work on avoiding that lull so hard that they lose the forest for the trees.

They lose sight, for being okay isn't always a bad thing. Being in the dead center of the scale means you won't fall off the edge. But even those who are always chasing rainbows are prone to never stopping.And sometimes that's just not okay.