It is What it is.
While dumb heartless pricks like “president” Donald J Trump use the phrase “it is what it is” to absolve himself of any responsibility for allowing the unfettered spread of Coronavirus to make people sick and cause 155 thousand American deaths, allow me to address a less angry and contentious side of all this.
Let me offer my spirited defense of… “It is what it is.”
I started a new job about ten years ago and honest to God, I had never heard this expression before then. And then suddenly, there it was: everywhere.
“It is what it is.”
Everyone said it. Everyone employed this expression when a day turned dark and horrible through no one’s fault.
I work outside with heavy equipment where there are probably about 200 people working at any given time. Rain or shine, snow or blazing sun, in all manner of things. Nothing stops us, with the exception of lightning or the occasional hurricane or bad storm. I work with real people who come from all kinds of backgrounds and prejudices and assumptions and wit and humor and idiosyncrasies that you may or may not get used to over the years. The people come and go, and sometimes people drop off and you forget about them.
But there are 2 constants:
1. The weather is the weather.
2. The job is the job.
You are working outside, doing the job, which will never change, in weather, which you can’t control. There is no point complaining about it because….
It Is What It Is!
It’s actually a beautiful expression when used correctly, and in context. It is working class unconscious Zen Buddhism, Stoicism, and Serenity Prayer, all wrapped up in one. The bottom line is that it advocates accepting your lot in life if that is what you have to do to survive. It is saying, “bitching won’t help me out of this.” Because sometimes that is the case. It is a lesson we all have to learn, just as surely as learning it’s opposite. Knowing what to do when is part of the game.
But you know…it is what it is….
No comments:
Post a Comment