"It Is What It Is" - Just a Cliche?

I have never been a fan of cliches. They are cute the first few times they are used, but quickly become overused and their meaning becomes watered down. An example of this is "that is wrong on so many levels." That sounded cool when I first heard it. Then I heard it again, and again, and again. I started to think, "what does that mean exactly?" How can something be wrong on many levels? What levels? Can't it just be wrong? Why does it have to have levels of wrongness? And then the cliche just sounded stupid.

So you are probably wondering why I wrote a lens about the cliche "it is what it is." The phrase has been very popular in sports circles, and since I don't follow sports, I guess I had not experienced the over-exposure.

I find myself saying it quite often whenever I find myself in a stressful situation. It has the effect of immediately calming me down. If it is very hot on the way home from work, I remind myself that it is summer and say, "it is what it is." I have no control over the weather, and no matter if it is hot, cold, raining, or snowing, grumbling about it has never changed it.

As I mentioned, the phrase has been used in sports for several years. It was named as the Sports Quote of 2004 and described as a "simple, five-word line used by many athletes and coaches to sum up troubles of all sorts and send an instant message that it's time to move on"

Don Powell is a psychologist, sports fan and author of "Best Sports Clichés Ever!" He says that it means,"It's happened. 'I'm going to forget about it. I'm going to move on. ... There is nothing that can be done about it."

"In a stressful situation, it can be instantly comforting and positive," he adds. "I think there's kind of a subconscious, psychological reason why we like clichés," Powell says. "It has to do with the psychological concept that familiarity breeds comfort."
(Source: 'It is what it is' By Gary Mihoces, USA TODAY)

Not everyone likes the phrase "It is What It Is," just as I don't like some other cliches. I thought it was important to provide those points of view as well. In an article entitled, "It's All Good vs. It Is What It Is" in Flak Magazine, author J. Daniel Janzen states,

"'It is what it is' means what it means. Depending on context, it can be a statement of resignation or of defiance, but in neither case does it connote the optimistic good humor of "It's all good." If anything, it expresses the absence of emotion, the abdication of feeling. Although it seems to imply value-neutrality, that misses the point; it's not so much that something is neither good nor bad, but rather that its quality simply isn't relevant, that it's not worth the energy to make a value judgment."

He goes on to say, "To put it another way - it doesn't matter what you think about it because you can't do anything about it anyway."

I have to agree that it would be all too easy to use the phrase to say there is no hope or to point out that there is nothing you can do to make things better, so why try? I hope that I can re-direct that thinking into a different view, one that does much to bring inner peace.

In 1971. Ram Dass wrote the book, "Be Here Now," which I found very inspiring. Ram Dass's real name is Richard Alpert, and he was a psychology professor at Harvard. He and Timothy Leary experimented with LSD. Alpert dropped out of academia and the drug culture and traveled to India, where he met his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. From his guru, Alpert received his name Ram Dass, which means servant of God.

From Ram Dass Love Serve Remember Foundation:

"Be Here Now, Ram Dass's monumentally influential and seminal work, still stands as the highly readable centerpiece of Western articulation of Eastern philosophy, and how to live joyously a hundred per cent of the time in the present, luminous or mundane. Be Here Now continues to be the instruction manual of choice for generations of spiritual seekers. Forty years later, it's still part of the timeless present. Being here now is still being here now."

Quotes from Ram Dass

"It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed."

"As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be, you can't see how it is."

Fast forward from 1971 when "Be Here Now" was published, to the present time. The current popular book is the "Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. What does this book have to tell us that is new and different? Or is it just that he has re-told it in a way that people can relate to?

The essence of the book is, "This Moment is All There Ever Is." Tolle himself sees it as "a restatement for our time of that one timeless spiritual teaching, the essence of all religions."

For the purpose of our research, a quest to understand "It is What it Is," let's look at some quotes from the book that relate.

"The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind."

"Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be"

"Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally"

I looked long and hard for a picture that would reflect the concept of the Power of Now. It finally occurred to me that it was sitting right in my computer.

These photos are of my daughter, Alex, and a wolf named Shadow. They were taken one summer when we visited the International Wolf Center in Ely, MN. Although they weren't actually looking at each other at the precise moment when the pictures were taken, both Alex and the wolf were totally in the moment.

If we are honest, we will admit that we often think in terms of "if only." If only my parents had done this, or hadn't done that. If only I was born smarter, or better looking. If only I had lived in a better neighborhood.

Not only is It What It Is, it also "Was What It Was." This means that the past is over. We cannot control what happened in our childhood. We cannot change who our parents were or how we were treated. The only thing we can change is our reaction to those events.

I found a great article that speaks to this concept from someone who has struggled to come to terms with her own dysfunctional family.

In the article "Still Blaming Others for Your Lot in Life?" on her blog, "Guess What Normal Is," Amy Eden states:

"For sure, it's unfortunate that we got a less than ideal foundation laid for us by our family. And it's unfortunate that we don't have the kind of support and encouragement from our family that we see other people receiving. But, there's nothing we can do about that. There is nothing we can do about the childhood we had, it is what is was. Sure, you can complain and blame, but don't spend too long doing that or you'll lose out on creating a life you want to enjoy and participate in."

She continues, "At some point, I decided to take responsibility for what happens next in my life. I decided to accept the upbringing I'd had--it was what it was. I decided to move on and figure out how to make the life I wanted."

This brings us right back to the other concept of the Power of Now. The only thing we have is now. To focus on what happened in the past causes us to miss the adventure that is happening today.

I found this little book in a used book store and gave it to my daughter who was going through some rough times. I am going to have to pick up a copy for myself, for it is packed with little vignettes that fit in with what we are talking about here. The author, Richard Carlson, PH.D, put together helpful hints to show us how to keep the little things in life from driving us crazy.

Not surprising one of those hints is, "To a large degree, the measure of our peace of mind is determined by how much we are able to live in the present moment."

Here are some more excerpts:

Ask Yourself the Question, "Will This Matter a Year from Now?"

"This too shall pass.......Every experience you have ever had is over. Every thought you've ever had, started and finished. Every emotion and mood you've experienced has been replaced by another. You've been happy, sad, jealous, depressed, angry, in love, shamed, proud and every other conceivable human feeling. Where did they all go? The answer is, no one really knows. Everything disappears into nothingness. Welcoming the truth into your life is the beginning of a liberating adventure."

"Life is just one thing after another. When something is happening that we enjoy, it will eventually be replaced by something else, a different type of moment. If that's ok with you, you'll feel peace even when the moment changes."

Richard Carlson passed away in December 2006. His wife Kristine maintains the Official Website, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff where you can learn more about his books and life story.

Those who know me or have been reading my other lenses, know that I walk the Wiccan path. Therefore, I would be remiss if I didn't include some insights from Wiccan authors.

Raven Grimassi is a well known teacher and practitioner of magical systems. In the book, Spirit of the Witch, he includes "mini-teachings" that many of his students had written down after talking with him. If you have been following along with the previous modules, you will recognize a recurrent theme.

"Trust that balance is assured in this life. In the Winter it is useless to rage against the cold. Take what warmth is available, participate as is appropriate to the season, and await the renewal that is always guaranteed with the coming of Spring."

"Asking why is not as important as simply dealing with it. Essentially, most of the things in our lives we bring to ourselves. But, we do have the power to decide how we will deal with it, how we will react to it, and how we will feel about it (that is, after the initial shock). Remember, we are not victims of the Universe. We are weavers and shapers. Take the stuff that gets dumped on you and refashion it into something more desirable. It's your choice; be a victim or a fashion designer."

It is what it is! Coffee Mug - Cup by Grannysagedesigns
Begin selling my art online at zazzle.

We've been going around in a big circle and we've come back to the phrase, "It is what it is." Haven't we spent a lot of time and energy exploring just a few simple words? The answer is "Yes". More appropriately, instead of traveling in a circle, we have been traveling in a spiral, coming back to the same place, but at a deeper level.

Sometime the simple is so simple that we either ignore it or pass it off as unimportant. But when you have dug deep into the essence of it, or "grokked" it as Heinlein would say, then when you repeat those words they resonate at a deeper level. So instead of thinking that it doesn't matter, or that we are powerless, we begin to realize that it we do have power....to change our reaction to life's events.

"It is what it is" can then become a mantra to remind us to stay focused in the moment, not to sweat the small stuff, not to dwell on past events that we cannot change, and that accepting "what is" is a way of freeing us from our pain and suffering.

Years ago, I met a man on-line who had discovered this concept and tried his best to pass it on. His name was Dennis Krum and he has a website called simply "Is". I was too busy focusing on my drama at the time, and failed to really listen. While creating this lens, I went back to look and found this:

"IS... is a complete lack of judgment. It is not modified by words like "good" or "bad", or "right" or "wrong". It stands independently, all by itself. If something just IS, it has no power to disturb my peace. It is not judged as "bad" and therefore doesn't have to become "good" to make me "happy", for I am happy with it as it IS. Nothing is "wrong", and therefore I don't have to be "right" and impose my will on others, or on events to make them fit my judgment of what they "should" be.

Likewise, no other person is anything other than the way they are. They can be accepted exactly as IS, without them or anything they do being judged as "right" or "wrong"."

So I tip my hat to one of my teachers - guess what, Dennis, I "Get It" I recommend you visit his website, IS -Spiritual Insights, where he has provided a free e-book of the same name.

If you are unfamiliar with Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" I suggest you pick up a copy of one ASAP. One cannot go through life without understanding what it means to Grok something.

From the book: "Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed-to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science-and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man."

"Stranger in a Strange Land" is the story of a human child who is stranded on Mars and raised by Martians. The word "grok" literally means "water" and because water is scarce on Mars, the Martians ritualized the drinking of water with becoming one with water and the water becoming one with the drinker. They "grok" each other, So to grok something means to understand it so totally, that it becomes a part of you.

If you can achieve this deep understanding of the phrase, "It is what it is," then it becomes magickal and can instantly transform something stressful and frustrating into an inner peace.

Only it never really ends, because the spiral keeps going deeper, as long as you want to follow it. Or as they say in "Down the Rabbit Hole," (the sequel to "What the Bleep to We Know?"), "How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?"

I know some of you are asking questions like, "what about war, death, rape, murder, child abuse, etc.? How can you say "It is what it is" about all those things? Shouldn't we be upset about the evil in our world?"

Ah, the answer is simple and complicated at the same time. In the words of those we have been studying, it is still what it is. Whatever is happening in the moment, is happening. We see that someone is being assaulted on the street. If we are being totally in the moment, and not feeling sorry for ourselves because our girlfriend/boyfriend just broke up with us, we will be able to connect to the Power of Now, the energy that is available to us at every moment, to react in the best manner possible. What that action is would be determined by the moment.

No one denies there are terrible things that happen, both on an individual level and a global level. It is how we decide to react to them that makes all the difference. At that, my friends, is yet a topic for another lens.

~Magickal Graphics~

As I said, this lens is dedicated to my sister Pat. She is a pretty incredible person, in my opinion. Although a wee bit older than myself, she has been traveling the world and gives of herself in service, while little sis grannysage is sitting at home on the couch.

This picture was taken when she participated in a 3 month long volunteer mission to Palestine to help monitor human rights. The program is called EAPPI - Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.

Their website states, "EAPPI accompanies Palestinians and Israelis in nonviolent actions and carries out advocacy efforts to end the occupation. Participants monitor and report violations of human rights and international humanitarian law."

She gives a personalized account of her time there in her blog,"A Time To Speak." I learned a lot about this area of the world from reading her story, things that don't usually end up on the news.