Lebanese Greetings

I always struggle with the glossary of Lebanese greeting vocabulary, the non-Arabic terms being another story. I just get confused when people greet me with "how is life" or "How are your days" and even "how are you" in Arabic sounding more like "tell me about your conditions". I just get confused. Somewhy I take those questions literally. That's how they sound to me anyway and I feel an urge to answer truly often without really wanting to. The true answers start crawling into my head and I end up shutting them up with "not this one", "find something else", "say anything", "you are taking too long", and I would end up showing my fake white teeth smile.