Sorry it has to stop! Recently I have noted a trend in myself and others towards using the phrase ‘not too bad‘ in response to the question ‘How are you?‘. What on earth does ‘not too bad’ mean, what is ‘too bad’, are you feeling good, close to death, who knows. Huh! It is time to make a stand and start using positive reponses not positive negatives (or is that negative positives?) to these simple daily questions.
I have taken now to stopping and deliberately replying with a positive response to the question, it only has to be a one word response either ‘good’, ‘excellent’, or ‘bad’, whatever is appropriate. Not only do you feel more positive and decisive overall, but it is more economical!
It strikes me that it is imperative that with every question we should seek to provide a postive answer which actually provides some value to the questioner, since when did we all become politicians afraid to answer even the simplest question. Time to take back the initiative and strike a blow for positiveness.
Musings in a wired world 
Hi, I have the same problem, I keep on using not too bad when ask how are you.
Is self aware such a bad thing? but answering “feeling great” when I am just feeling “not great and not bad” is like lying and that makes me feel bad because that person care for us and ask sincerely how r we doing. so, how do your positive response keeping up? would love to hear your experience. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Steve
Steve.
What I mean is if I am feeling that way then I will respond with something like “not the best today”. What I hated was the term I continually found myself saying “not too bad” since that covers the whole range from great to near death, what REALLY is TOO BAD? I just really try to make my answer obvious so that if the person cares they can then ask for more details, I found that “not too bad” just becaome a way to avoid people asking for more detail.
Simon