Hows it Goin?…What’s Goin On?
Comments(0) Hows it goin?
That is a question that I seem to hear a great deal. It seems to be the greeting that we are now using. Responses I usually hear from most people are, “Not Bad”, “Ok”, “Not Great”, “Shitty” and in case you are wondering what my response is I say “Grand!” Lately I’ve been thinking about the answer to that question within the framework of my life and wondering what the answer might be/could be for me, besides an auto-response of “Grand!”
Firstly about my auto-response. About a year ago I saw “The Secret” on Oprah (yes I occasionally watch Oprah) and one of the things I heard was that the universe doesn’t hear the words ‘Don’t’ or ‘Not’. When people ask you how you are doing and you say “Not Bad” what the universe hears is “Bad” and it says to itself you want more ‘bad’ here it comes. If you don’t believe me that this is how the universe works then I have an example for you; whatever you do Do Not think about a red car. Now how many of you just saw a red car in your mind. Even though I told you not to think about it I’ll bet it was the first thought in your head.
A response of Not Bad will get you more of the same. What the people on the Oprah show suggested was switching up your language to saying, “Good.” instead of, “Not Bad.” and seeing how that affected your life. So I switched my ‘auto-response’ to “Grand!”. Now sometimes I genuinely mean it. My life is truly grand and I believe it fully. Sometimes I hear my self say grand and not really mean it. When I catch my self doing this I stop and think about what I have said and I hear my internal dialogue turn to, “Yes! I am grand. I have so much going for me.” This auto-response has made a great deal of difference in my life.
What’s Goin on?
Another kind of greeting that I have been noticing lately is “What’s Goin on?” or “What’s happening?” and if you are really retro and into old beer adds then the phrase “WHAAA-SSSUPPPP” can also be used. I hear this phrase when the person asking it has more than 3 seconds that they’d like to commit to talking with me. Answers to this question can include “Not Much”, “Keepin it Real” or “Same Shit Different Pile.” For this one I don’t have an auto-response, but I have been listening to what I say when I answer this question and I have begun wondering “What is the truth underneath my response?” When I say I’m grand I can usually list off very quickly a handful of reasons why I believe I’m Grand, but what is really going on for me right now?
At a surface level this can be answered fairly obviously by listing events in my recent history and apply my judgements on those events to determine what’s going on.
That formula again: “Hows It Goin?” = ((E+J) X S)L)/L
| E = Event: | An event is something that I consciously think of. These do not have to be large and happen all the time. Dan Millman says, “There are no ordinary Moments”, so every moment of every day could be an event if we chose to remember it. |
| J = Judgment: | As humans we love to judge. That was good…that was bad…I like that…I don’t like that |
| L =NumberOfEventsRemembered | If I don’t remember many events to base this answer on then my sample size will skew the results. Just like having a poll where you ask two people’s opinion and the poll result is 51% FOR and 49% Against. The larger the sample the more accurate the answer. |
| S = Signifigance Of Event | This is a scale between -10 and 10. Negative numbers for negative experience significance and Positive numbers for positive. What if in one day I remembered that 10 different people smiled at me. Each of these events I give a significance of 1 and on person cuts me off in traffic and I weight that as -10. These could then cancel each other out. The point of significance is where do I choose to focus? Do I focus on the one ‘negative’ experience or the ten ‘positive’ ones. |
Ultimately the “Surface” answer to “Hows it going” and “Whats going on” is based on how much living in the moment I am doing ( how aware I am of the events that I experience) and how much focus I give to the ‘positive’ or the ‘negative’ events. If I am focused on the positive events and someone asks, “What’s goin on?” my response will be, “So many people are smiling at me to day and I just got a raise and saw an awesome sun rise”. If I focus on the negative I will more likely respond, “ I just got cut off in traffic and almost died”
Now I’m wondering, “If all of that is at the surface, then How am I and/or What’s goin on for me at a deeper level?”
