‘It was fine.’

I said it to be encouraging, but the response was ‘It wasn’t supposed to be fine, it was supposed to be more than fine!’

Sometimes ‘fine’ is all we can manage or even so much more than we hoped to achieve. Especially in times of overwhelm or complexity. Other times ‘fine’ is a disappointing, even a failure perhaps.

Fine is a reminder of how subjective evaluation is, even if there is criteria outlined. And ‘fine’ is one of those funny english words with countless definitions and use cases – cultural and linguistically. Therefore, it can be confusing for a non-native english speaker to learn.

Photo by Tamanna Rumee