Breaking Through the “Always On” Mentality
The other day at work, one of my co-workers greeted me with such enthusiasm after not chatting with each other in a while. “Lindsey! Hi! How are you?” she asked with a big smile. And instead of faking an answer and putting a smile on, I responded spiritlessly, saying “Honestly, not so good”.
I could see the disappointment in her eyes and felt somewhat guilty for squashing her excitement to catch up, but it was the truth. I was having a mentally tough week and I was exhausted. I couldn’t muster up the ability to say something else and pretend that I was doing great and that everything was great and I had nothing to complain about. I just wanted to be real.
Sometimes, we feel the need to hide the fact that we’re upset or anxious or frustrated, especially to coworkers, because we don’t want to come off as a Debbie Downer. We don’t want to project our emotions on other people or ruin their mood. We don’t want to bring someone else’s day down with our negativity— or this is how I feel at least. So, in the past, whenever I was having a really crappy day and someone asked me how I was doing, I would suck it up and tell a little white lie that, “I’m doing great!” when really, I’m not.
If we’re going through something difficult, we shouldn’t feel the pressure to put on a smile just for the sake of other people. Instead, we…
