think more?

I've gotten into the awful, insincere habit of always saying "Good, how are you?" when someone asks me how I am. It's my automatic answer, and it's so hurried that no one could really believe i'm paying attention when I say it, but I say it anyway.

So someone at work, one of my bosses' bosses--part of the design team, he was wearing a vertically striped button-down shirt in lime green, pink, and blue when I first met him--stuck his head over my cubicle wall and said "Hi, how are you?" And because I had just gotten to work--late--and because I had just sat down at my computer and was trying to take the advice of my calming tea, I answered "Good, how are you?" And he said cheerily, "Simply great." And though he asked me a couple of other questions after that, I was so taken aback by his clean and confident answer that I just stumbled through the rest of the conversation, convinced that I should change my rule. Or think more.