(Dump #4)
Haha, earlier I plugged my phone into a different charger, thinking it was the fast one. Five hours later, I come back, and it’s on 9%. NINE. I just stood there staring at it like it personally betrayed me. Like, what were you doing that whole time?? Meditating?? Charging in spirit?? It is what it is, but I absolutely hate that it is.
Anyway, I’m having coffee. My head hurts. Probably from all the thinking. Or the coffee. Or life. Who knows.
But never mind that. Let’s talk about "it is what it is."
A phrase so overused it might as well be on a motivational poster next to a sunset. The universal response to anything that makes us uncomfortable. You didn’t get the job? It is what it is. Your relationship fell apart? It is what it is. Your coffee order got messed up, your pet ignored you, the world is burning? It is what it is.
I hear it all the time. We all say it. “It is what it is.” It’s supposed to mean acceptance, right? That whatever happened, happened. That there’s no point fighting reality. But tell me why every time someone says it, their face looks like they want to throw a chair.
Because let’s be real...
When people say “it is what it is,” they don’t actually mean it. They mean, “I hate that it is, but I can’t do anything about it.” It’s resignation disguised as wisdom. The phrase is like emotional duct tape—it holds things together, but underneath, everything’s still a mess.
This is called cognitive dissonance—when your brain is holding two conflicting beliefs at once. You want to accept something, but you hate that you have to. So, you slap an “it is what it is” over it, hoping that will somehow make the discomfort go away. Spoiler: it doesn’t.
And that’s because humans are wired to resist things they don’t like. We crave control, even if it’s just the illusion of it. The moment something happens that we don’t want to accept, we mentally start rewriting it. What if I had done this instead? Maybe if I had said that, things would be different. And then, when we realize there’s no undo button for life, we default to: Well. It is what it is.
But deep down, we don’t actually believe that. We believe it shouldn’t be. And that’s the part we hate.
Why We Pretend We’re Okay With Things We’re Not?
Saying “it is what it is” is basically emotional outsourcing. It’s like telling your brain, Figure it out. I’m done. Because acknowledging that you hate something means sitting with that discomfort, and let’s be honest, who actually enjoys doing that? Nobody. That’s why people scroll on their phones for hours, binge-watch shows they don’t even like, and start arguments with their own reflection in the shower.
The thing is, even when we do accept something, it’s rarely instant. The brain has this fun little way of processing things called the stages of grief. And yes, you can grieve things that aren’t actual deaths—lost opportunities, failed relationships, embarrassing things you said in 2014.
Acceptance isn’t the first step. It’s the last. But because no one wants to go through all the uncomfortable in-between steps (denial, anger, bargaining, depression), they just jump straight to “it is what it is” and hope that magically fixes it. It doesn’t. It just leaves you emotionally constipated.
The Reality of It: Some Things Are Just Unfair, and That’s That.
Sometimes, things really just are. Not because of fate, not because of some grand lesson, but because life isn’t obligated to be fair. That’s a hard truth to swallow, especially if you’re the kind of person who believes everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, things just happen, and the only reason is… they did.
The universe isn’t plotting against you. The world isn’t sitting around thinking, How can we personally inconvenience this one specific person today? But that doesn’t make unfair things feel any less unfair. And the worst part? Not everything has closure. Some things will just stay open-ended. No answers. No satisfying resolution. Just is.
So, why do we keep pretending like we’re at peace with it?
Maybe “It Is What It Is” Should Just Be “It Sucks, and I Hate It”
What if we just… stopped lying? What if, instead of saying “it is what it is,” we just said what we really meant?
Like:
“This situation sucks, and I hate that I can’t change it.”
“I don’t like this, but I have to deal with it anyway.”
“I want to fight reality, but reality has a baseball bat.”
Wouldn’t that be more honest? More freeing?
Because at the end of the day, pretending to be okay doesn’t actually make you okay. Saying “it is what it is” doesn’t automatically erase frustration. But acknowledging that you hate something? That actually does something. It gives you permission to be human.
Whatever. Maybe I’m overthinking it. But then again, that’s literally what I do.
Anyway, my coffee’s cold, and I just realized I have a meeting in 10 minutes that I completely forgot about.
It is what it is.