SUNDAY WITH PHILOSOPHY JANE | We Say “I’m Fine” Before We’ve Even Checked

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (September 27, 2026). At 11:26 on a perfectly ordinary Saturday morning, a woman I had not spoken to since a parish committee meeting in 2019 cornered me near the organic shallots and asked how I was doing.

I did not pause. I did not evaluate my physical systems. There was no internal consultation.

“I’m fine,” I said.

She said she was fine too.

The entire transaction took roughly four seconds. We smiled, traded two rapid remarks about how fast the summer had evaporated, agreed with completely empty warmth that we should get coffee sometime, and parted ways. Neither of us reached for a calendar, and both of us knew that if we encountered each other in that same produce section three years from now, we would execute the exact same maneuver with military precision.

I made it as far as the yellow onions before the gravity of what I had done hit me.

Was I fine?

I stood beside a pyramid of Spanish onions and conducted my first honest inventory of the day. I had been awake since 4:47 that morning for no reason other than my brain deciding it was time to replay an embarrassing blunder from ninth-grade gym class. My left shoulder felt like it had been processed through a meat grinder because apparently sleeping past age fifty is now a contact sport. I was still harboring an unreasonable amount of hostility over an email sent to me on Thursday by a man named Gary. I had skipped breakfast, forgotten why I needed onions twice since entering the building, and spent twenty minutes searching for my reading glasses while they were resting on top of my head.

On the other hand, my house had not burned down. I was wearing matching shoes. I had found a coupon for Greek yogurt that didn’t expire until Tuesday, and my car had started on the first attempt.

So maybe “fine” was a statistically defensible summary.

But that wasn’t what bothered me.

The answer had exited my mouth before my brain had even been notified that a question was asked.

The Four-Second Examination

“How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

Human beings perform this reflexive ritual constantly. The answer can leave the mouth so quickly that the question barely has time to arrive. Nobody reviews the preceding seventy-two hours. Nobody considers whether the strange mood that appeared Wednesday afternoon has cleared. There is no meeting.

“Fine” is simply launched.

I began thinking about how many times I had issued the same status report during the week. A neighbor asked across the driveway while wrestling a trash can. Fine. A cashier at the pharmacy asked while scanning toothpaste. Fine. An insurance representative opened a conversation about a claim dispute by cheerfully inquiring about my personal well-being.

Fine.

Nothing demonstrates society’s commitment to manners quite like a person preparing to dispute your insurance claim while expressing concern about how your morning is going.

I had been certifying an entire human being while reaching for paper towels without conducting a single inspection.

I picked up an onion. I squeezed it. I did not need an onion.

I put it back down.

My internal crisis was now starting to draw looks from a teenager stocking bell peppers.

What Fine Actually Does

The problem, I realized, wasn’t that “fine” was necessarily a lie. The word was being asked to perform an unreasonable amount of social labor.

If a cashier asks how I am, “fine” does not mean I have examined every corner of my life and found conditions satisfactory. It means I am functioning well enough to complete this transaction and neither of us needs to discuss my relationship with Gary.

If someone asks while I am carrying melting ice cream toward a car, “fine” may mean whatever crisis currently exists has been temporarily outranked by dairy.

There is also a particular version of “fine” delivered by a person who has just tripped over a curb in public. That person may have lost skin, dignity and possibly one functioning knee, but the moment a stranger asks, “Are you okay?” the injured party will leap upright and announce that everything is fine while walking in a manner that suggests otherwise.

And then there is the “fine” delivered with absolute stillness while somebody sets a coffee mug on the counter just a little too carefully.

That one means you should probably stop asking questions.

We need the word.

Imagine if every casual inquiry required complete accuracy. You would ask a neighbor how she was doing over the hedge and receive an hour-long deposition concerning her lower back, her brother-in-law’s jet ski investment and a strange squeaking sound coming from her dryer.

Nobody would get anywhere.

The grocery store would have to install folding chairs near produce. Shift changes would occur while someone you vaguely remember from church explained what her sister said at Thanksgiving in 2017 and why, technically, nobody has apologized.

So “fine” has a legitimate purpose. Sometimes it is courtesy. Sometimes it is privacy. Sometimes it means the answer is complicated and we are standing beside potatoes.

What interested me was how rarely I seemed to know which version I was using.

Brenda Conducts an Audit

That afternoon, Brenda called.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Fine.”

It came out instantly.

There was a pause.

“Okay,” Brenda said.

Brenda has several versions of the word “okay,” and anyone who has known her for more than six months learns to read them like weather radar.

There is the ordinary okay, which means she heard you. There is the distracted okay, which means she is doing something else. Then there is the quiet okay that signals she has detected an irregularity in your documentation and is giving you one opportunity to correct the record voluntarily.

This was that one.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“You said okay.”

“I usually say words when people talk to me.”

“That wasn’t a regular okay.”

“I didn’t realize my punctuation was subject to municipal review.”

“It isn’t. It’s just that you said it like you know something.”

“Jane, I asked a basic question. You gave me the automatic factory setting. I accepted the delivery.”

“I am fine,” I insisted.

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

She sounded completely calm, which made her infinitely more frustrating.

“Look,” I said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I didn’t sleep well because my pillow betrayed me, my shoulder feels like it was hit by a stray baseball, and I spent ten minutes this morning glaring at a polite email from a man named Gary. But overall, I am fine.”

“When did you check?” she asked.

“What?”

“When did you check if you were fine?”

I started to laugh because it sounded like a ridiculous question, but the laugh died halfway through my throat when I realized I didn’t have an answer.

The Kitchen Table Examination

After we hung up, I decided to conduct an actual inspection. Not because Brenda had proven a point. I want that recorded for history.

I was simply curious.

I poured a glass of water, made a sandwich and sat down at the kitchen table without a book, a crossword puzzle or my phone.

Separating myself from my phone lasted roughly fourteen seconds before my right hand began searching for it. I had intentionally placed the phone on the far counter, but my nervous system immediately treated its absence like a missing limb.

I left it there.

Then I sat.

I was tired. That much was obvious. My left shoulder was maintaining a dull complaint about whatever had happened during sleep. I was hungry, although the sandwich was handling that department. I was still carrying a small, sharp piece of annoyance about Gary’s Thursday email. If Gary’s name appeared on a screen at that moment, my eyebrows would have become involved.

I was also worried about a friend whose daughter was having surgery the following week. I was pleased about a project I had finished Friday. I was looking forward to making pot roast on Sunday.

Then, without invitation, I suddenly wondered whether I had turned off the iron.

I sat upright.

For several seconds, this seemed like a legitimate concern.

Then I remembered that I had not ironed a piece of clothing since the Bush administration.

This is one of the difficulties of checking in with yourself. Once you open the office, apparently anybody can walk in.

I ate another bite of my sandwich.

Nothing was seriously wrong.

Nothing was perfectly right either.

Apparently I could be tired, irritated, worried about somebody, pleased with myself, looking forward to pot roast and suspicious of an appliance I had not used in years without any of those conditions canceling the others.

Maybe that was what I had been missing.

“Fine” did not have to mean that every department was operating beautifully.

It might simply mean the building was open.

The Difference Between Asking and Asking

I thought again about the woman near the shallots.

Had she really wanted the complete answer?

Probably not.

That did not make her question insincere. She had stopped. She smiled. She had been genuinely glad to see me.

But there are questions we ask because we care about another person, and there are moments when caring does not require requesting their complete records.

“How are you?” can be a greeting.

It can also be an invitation.

Usually we know the difference.

A woman you haven’t seen since a parish committee meeting asks how you are while both of you are holding groceries. You say you’re fine.

A close friend sits across from you, looks at your face and says, “No. How are you?”

That is a different appointment.

The words barely change.

The assignment does.

I began to think that the accuracy of “fine” mattered less than whether I knew what I meant when I said it.

Sometimes there is nothing worth reporting. Sometimes there is, but the produce department is not getting the exclusive. And sometimes a person needs another hour before deciding what the truth is.

Apparently I had developed the additional option of answering before I opened the file.

Brenda Receives the Findings

I called Brenda back.

“I checked.”

She started laughing before I could explain.

“You checked what?”

“How I’m doing.”

“Oh, good.”

“Don’t start.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I can hear your face.”

“My face is not making noise.”

“It has a tone.”

I told her what I had discovered.

I was tired. My shoulder hurts. Gary remained irritated. I was worried about my friend’s daughter. I was happy about the project I had finished. I was looking forward to the pot roast.

“So,” Brenda said, “you’re fine.”

I sat there.

This was irritating.

“I spent part of my afternoon investigating this.”

“And?”

“You can’t reduce everything I just said to fine.”

“Why not?”

“Because there were details.”

“There are always details.”

I hated how quickly she found the problem.

I had been treating “fine” as though it meant there could be no contradictory evidence anywhere in the building.

Brenda had apparently been using the word normally.

I resented her for this.

“Fine,” I said.

“Good.”

“That was not the same fine.”

“I know.”

The Second Examination at Dairy

Three days later, I was back at the grocery store because apparently my philosophical development still required milk.

I was maneuvering my cart around a display of discounted dish soap when I saw another acquaintance coming down the aisle.

We locked eyes.

There was no escape.

“Jane! How are you?”

I felt the answer coming.

“I’m f...”

I stopped.

She blinked.

For the first time, I actually checked before answering.

My shoulder was still slightly stiff, but manageable. Gary had been downgraded from active irritation to somebody I would prefer not to hear from until Monday. I slept seven decent hours. Nothing had happened that morning requiring an emergency conversation beside the cottage cheese.

“I’m fine,” I said.

And I was.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Oh, fine!” she replied immediately.

I looked into her shopping cart.

Between a carton of eggs and a bag of celery sat two family-sized tubs of chocolate fudge ice cream and a bottle of maraschino cherries.

I looked back at her.

For half a second, I considered asking whether she had checked.

Then I remembered where we were.

“Good,” I said. “It’s really great to see you.”

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