It's Gonna Be OK

I hate it when people say "it's going to be OK" because it's not going to be. 

Sometimes, most times in fact, things are genuinely not going to be OK, and pretending otherwise is a form of emotional dishonesty that says more about the speaker's discomfort than the listener's situation.

When someone tells you their marriage is falling apart, their parents are dying, or they've lost their job, responding with "it's going to be OK" is essentially telling them to stop feeling what they're feeling because their pain makes you uncomfortable. 

It's a conversational escape hatch that allows people to avoid engaging with real problems by offering meaningless reassurance.

The phrase serves the speaker far more than the person suffering. 

Saying "it's going to be OK" lets you feel like you've helped without actually having to help. It's the emotional equivalent of throwing a quarter in a homeless person's cup and walking away feeling charitable. 

You've discharged your social obligation to acknowledge someone's pain without investing any real thought, time, or emotional energy.

What makes it particularly repulsive is the arrogance embedded in the statement. 

How do you know it's going to be OK? 

Are you psychic? 

Have you analyzed their specific situation and determined that all the variables will align in their favor? 

Or are you just saying whatever it takes to end an uncomfortable conversation as quickly as possible?

Sometimes things don't work out. 

Sometimes the cancer spreads. 

Sometimes the marriage really is over. Sometimes people lose everything and never recover. 

Sometimes life deals hands that can't be played to a winning outcome, no matter how positive your attitude or how many people tell you everything will be fine.

The real hypocrisy is that the same people who offer these bland reassurances would never accept them in their own moments of crisis. When their world is collapsing, they want to be heard, understood, and supported, not dismissed with fortune cookie wisdom about better days ahead.

"It's going to be OK" is what people say when they can't think of anything useful to say but feel compelled to say something anyway. 

The phrase also reveals how poorly we handle other people's pain. 

We're so uncomfortable with negative emotions that we immediately try to neutralize them with false optimism rather than simply sitting with someone in their difficult moment. 

We'd rather lie about uncertain futures than acknowledge present suffering.

What people actually need when they're going through hell isn't prediction about how things will turn out, it's recognition that their current experience is difficult and that someone cares enough to witness it without trying to fix it. Sometimes the most honest and helpful thing you can say is "this really sucks" or "I'm sorry you're dealing with this" or simply nothing at all.

The impulse to say "it's going to be OK" comes from a good place, the desire to comfort someone who's hurting. 

But comfort that requires denying reality isn't actually comforting. It's just another burden for someone who's already carrying too much.

Real support means being present with people in their uncertainty rather than pretending you have access to information about their future that you obviously don't possess. 

It means acknowledging that some situations genuinely are not OK and may never be OK, and that this acknowledgment doesn't make you a pessimist, it makes you honest.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can offer someone is the simple recognition that their pain is real, their fear is justified, and their situation is genuinely difficult. 

No predictions necessary, no false reassurances required, no premature happy endings that ignore the actual ending still being written.

Just the truth: right now, this is hard, right now this is what you have to deal with, I am right here for you, and that's enough to say.