how are things

Yesterday, a friend asked me "How are things going". I had to stop and think a minute. That is a hard question to answer. How are things going, compared to what?,yesterday? last year? the future? I really didn't know. Most people just ask that question to be nice, and most people answer back. ok or its going, without really thinking about it. When we think about it it may put things in perspective for us. For me, compared to the last couple years of my life, now is great. But compared to 5 years ago, it is not, and compared to the future, we never know. Compared to yesterday, I just woke up, who know's how the day will go. So How do you answer that quetion? When you think about it, life is a series of give and take, balance and trade offs. In one part of my life, things are going great, in another part its ok and in another part, it could be better. So which way do I answer? I think that is part of growing and experiencing life, having a balance and maintaining the status quo in certain areas and hoping to have a greater experience in some areas. Sometimes it seems like as soon as you get one part of your life together, another part needs addressing and so on and so forth. Maintaining a balance should prevent that. But to have balance in our life, we need self discipline. For me, its hard to have self discipline in the winter. ITs gloomy, its hard to get outside sometimes and its hard to drive places. But the trade off would be that I could be doing things, inside things, reading for my job, reading for pleasure, cleaning my house, writing letters, e mailing people, calling people I haven't talked to in a while. It can still be productive but in a different way. I think it is our perception and the way we look at "how's it going" as to the way we answer it. I think as long as we have passion for what we are doing at the time, then it doesn't matter how we answer that question, because it will always be the same. "its going just the way it is suppose to".