From the Brain of Dr. Nicki: It is What it is!

"It is what it is!" We hear this all the time. As if it’s an answer. Usually it’s a kind of ‘nothing to be done about it – accept things as they are’ statement. As if that idea can calm the beast.

Well, it rarely calms anything.

Sure it’s true. Things have innate properties. However, it’s also true things can appear one way and be transformed into something else. Years ago when cell phones were big, clunky objects the size of half your arm, my husband was holding one when attacked and afterwards got officially accused of carrying a concealed weapon. Phone or weapon? Hmmm. Guess things are not, in fact, always what they are.

While pondering how easily this annoying phrase is tossed around these days I looked on line and discovered a smart Phd named Liane Gabora also talking about the phrase. Her perspective was that it indicates an appreciation for potentiality. Love that take on it. Because it’s true – something though having inherent qualities, can be perceived as something not so obvious, which is another way of saying objects can be used in multiple ways [a knife can cut a vegetable or kill a person] which means it is more than it appears to be, or perhaps, that perception, as usual, rules the world.

Perhaps since there’s a duality [to say the least] about everything, this ‘it is what it is’ also, then, contains such. That means, it is what it is does not mean it’s all it can be or that it’s a take it or leave it kind of matter, but rather, those basic properties present themselves to your creative imagination to develop and determine what “it” might be used for or evolve to. Not unlike human beings.

So – is you what you is? Or might you simply be accepting the raw material of you as if it’s a done deal when actually it’s simply the basic material of something far more, or something decidedly different than you’ve yet imagined?

From my perspective things are rarely what they appear to be at first glance. Life is more. Things found in life are more. And people are more too. Thus, the next time you hear or get tempted to say ‘it is what it is’ stop, breathe and just for a second imagine other possibilities. For a situation. For the world. And for yourself.


** this is a re-post of a blog that first posted on August 15, 2016