It Is What It Is

Out of all the popular sayings, this has to be the worse. The only response to that statement can be the reverse in question form. Is it? What is it? Now I do have to say that I have used the phrase and it does have a certain heft to it that feels good in the dismissal of whatever it is…that’s when we say that. We use it when we really have stopped caring and when we have hurt feelings and even when we want to hurt someone else. It’s a form of dismissal. We say “it is what it is” and that’s usually the end of whatever it was.

My problem with the saying? The influx of ignorance that results from the implementation of this particular mindset.

There is no way to know everything. No man/woman is omniscient. But there is no way to possibly know anything when there is refusal to search the facts. Having a mindset of “it is what it is” even if the phrase is never uttered means that the stepping stones and lessons in life that should be remembered and employed are thrown out at the new starting point. That means that streams that have already been passed are once again unnavigable because the path across has been forgotten. It means that when the tests of life come the lessons haven’t even been studied.

Very few things in life are what they are. Most of the time it is some of what it is and a lot of what we make it. Aside from the Lord and many inanimate objects, most things can be molded into something beneficial. Even if the results are horrid the analysis of what produced the results is usually important enough to take note of. But the task becomes difficult when “it is what it is” instead of “what made it?” or “what can be made of it?”

I watch the children’s shows with my daughter. (So what?!) One thing they make sure that children can recognize is a pattern. I can’t figure out how we wait until adulthood to not be able to recognize patterns. We don’t see patterns of behavior in anyone except everyone else in the world. The patterns that make up our own personal lives hide from us. They find shelter and comfort in the part of our life right before we said “it is what it is.”

                                                                                                                                                   ----TTAII