This is Cultivated Good Life, episode 148.

Becky's hearing loss, that's me,

and how it relates to you.

Hey everybody, I'm Becky Higgins. That's me. I am Becky Proudfit. That's you. That's me. Hey. Okay, so this is so random.

Are you ready for this? I have a question. Okay. Speaking of like, hey, how are you doing? What do you usually say?

When somebody says, how are you doing? You say, I'm good. Great. Okay. So the other day, I was walking my dogs and I approached the neighbor.

The neighbor was out too. You know, you just say hi to your neighbors and whatever. And I was having a really, really, really, really rough day.

And so walking the dogs was like my moment of fresh air and just contemplating and you know, I'm deep in it.

And so when the neighbor, who's not a close friend, we have close friends that are neighbors and we have neighbors who are just neighbors, right?

No close relationship there, but you know, they're nice people, whatever. Yeah. And when she says, hey, how are you doing? I was like,

you know, when some people, when people ask you and you are not okay, and you're like, I feel like a liar, if I'm just like, oh, I'm great.

So I was just in that moment of like, this is a stupid thing. So my question for you back.

This really could be a whole episode, but I promise we can keep this quick. What is your thought about that? When somebody who's not a close personal person, who says, how are you doing?

And you really like, you're not a great place. What do you answer? How do you respond to that?

If it's someone who's not close to me, I would probably, if I was you, I probably would have said something like, well, the day's not going great, but I'm walking my dog so that it will get better.

Something like that. I would keep it probably like a little more on the positive beat. But I think this actually is kind of an important conversation, because if someone we know, you know, take it to a friend, or even like an acquaintance says, how are you doing?

It really serves no one for us to lie.

Right. I know. And that's why I feel like I should just bring that up because I just want to validate those of you who get in that situation where you're like, I feel really dishonest by not.

If I were just to say, I'm doing great when I'm really not like to your point back, it serves no one.

My response to that neighbor was similar to what you said.

Yeah. I did not want to be like, oh, I'm great. How are you? Because I just, I'm like, listen, we're all struggling. Like, let's be honest, she was probably struggling with something that day that I don't know about.

And yet we weren't going to get into this like deep conversation. We're not close personal friends.

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