"How are you doing?"

The question "how are you doing?" is an interesting one. Wondering where am I going with that statement? Stop and think about the word "how." It is usually used when describing a process, whether it is outlining the process itself or discussing its quality. After all, the first three definitions for "how" are "in what way or manner," "to what degree or extent," and "in what state or condition" according to Merriam-Webster.

Consider the structure of your own "how" conversations. When asked how a project is going, you launch into a commentary about your progress and hindrances. You talk about a process - giving some degree of background about the process itself and then evaluating it.

The interesting thing is when we apply the how question to a person. We tend to give a "feeling check" as a response or choose whatever it is we want that question to refer to and answer that way. We might respond as if the question is "How is your health?" or "How is your job going?" or even changing the question altogether to "What has your week looked like?" Why might we do this?

The question "How are you doing?" is like asking for a progress report on the most recent part of your life. Life is so big, so all-encompassing, that we either recognize that would be a long winded answer and make it more manageable or we decide that's not really what's being asked.

But, coming up on the end of 2019, I think it's appropriate to think through that full-fledged answer. To do so, consider three versions of the question separately.

1) How have you been "doing life" this year?
This question is meant to be a process question. Looking at your schedule and thinking through your priorities can help you come up with an answer. There are different approaches you could take, too. For things like this, I like making a list. Another option that's much more involved would be making a process flow chart.  For the sake of time and brainstorming, I'll give you part of my list as an example:

• Pursuing a master's degree in public health
• Going to classes
• Passing my classes
• Building professional skills as a statistician outside of schoolwork
• Conducting research
• Obtaining an internship
• Pursuing my faith
• Receiving the sacraments regularly
• Attending Anima Christi regularly
• Daily prayer

Alright, cool. So now that a process has been outlined, time to answer another version of the question.

2) "How is that going?" 

This is a process evaluation question. It's also more straight-forward to answer, so that's nice. Here's an example for my first section:

• Going to classes
• I only missed a couple of classes for health-related reasons. Otherwise, I very rarely showed up late. Overall, I did this pretty well.
• Passing my classes
• Final grades are yet to be posted, but I have no concerns on this front.

Like I said before, that wasn't too hard. Now for the last question.

3) How are you doing at being alive?

This one is kind of different. It refers to a couple of things. How is your physical health? Are you taking care of yourself? How is your spiritual health? Do you feel like your life has meaning and that you are living out of that meaning? Are you moving through life mechanically or intentionally? Do you feel more like a zombie or hollow cell as compared to an animated being? Is God a co-designer or only a component of your process? These questions are an evaluation of the overarching process you outlined above as compared to its components. The answers are the difference between just tweaking or extensively reworking it.  

So, how are you doing?