Welcome to deep thoughts with Ellen. On this Friday evening I am home, playing hooky from doing constructive things like practicing my ear training (midterms are next week).
I love The Happiness Project (the book and the blog). I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before. I’m a firm believer in the thought that happiness is something you choose, and I think the insights are often interesting. Gretchen Rubin sometimes interviews people who have something relevant to say on the topic, this one with author Hope Edelman was the most recent: “If I could remove one phrase from the English language, it would be ‘It is what it is’”
Too often, it seems like a fast and easy way to label a complicated situation “a thing I cannot change,” thereby giving the speaker permission to abandon efforts to improve it. No.
I thought that was interesting, and I see her point, but I must say I humbly disagree. I find myself saying this phrase a lot, usually in reference to the deployment. It is a complicated situation that I most certainly cannot change. When I use it, I don’t mean that I am going to wallow in whatever misery is happening, but rather because no matter what I do I can’t make my husband come home any faster. You just have to get through it. It’s more helpful to me to just acknowledge it as a fact of existence. Often I use it in talking to someone who is asking me about how I’m doing, how communication is, etc. If the person I’m talking to has experienced deployment, they know exactly what I mean. And if they haven’t, usually they can fill in the blanks.
I guess I use it more in the sense I’ve heard it taught in yoga and meditation: “This moment is as it is…neither good nor bad.” I never really thought of that as a cop out. Do you think it is?
I often say it too.. my feeling is there is no sense railing against what IS. While it can occasionally be defeatist, it’s also part of being content with who you are, where you are, what you have and what you don’t have. I think you need to learn to change the things you can change, accept what you can’t and mostly – the WISDOM to know the difference!
Hmmm..I agree with you. Somethings you just have to get through. I think that saying is a way to acknowledge that there are some things that just can not be changed. One can change their attitude, but the situation is beyond control. I think as military spouses we get our fair share (and sometimes other people’s share) of uncontrollable situations.
When I think “it is what it is” I think of myself as bending with situation. Trying to change situations that are beyond our control is defeating and frustrating. I have seen many military wives get themselves so spun up about situtations and it causes nothing but drama and heartache. I will skip that portion and take a dose of “it is what it is”.
Totally not a cop out. It is just the wisdom to know the difference between what we can change and what we can’t. Or even what we should change, and what we shouldn’t.
This isn’t really related to your post, but what you wrote still made me think of it. I went to a parent lecture during a violin workshop this past weekend. One of the things the very experienced teacher/parent said was that sometime we get so caught up in helping our kids learn the music that we forget the magic. Sometimes we need to step back, and let the kids step back, and just marvel at what they are able to do with their instruments. Marvel at their fingers moving so fast. Marvel at the sounds they can make. I imagine you could do that at the piano too.
It made me think that sometimes I need to sit back during or right after a deployment and marvel at what I DID do. I rolled with it all and got us all through perfectly okay. I got the kids to school early every single day. I practiced violin with the kids every single day. I got them to every single activity and every single party and every single practice. I fed them and loved them. Considering…that’s pretty awesome.
I know you have that too. It is what it is. And what you’re doing with it is pretty darn amazing.
No, it isn’t a cop out. It is just a way to deal with reality. There are things that just “are” and we can’t change them.