It is what it is

What is happiness? Theophrastus Aristotle’s second most famous student would argue that it was your virtue and external factors. Powerful thoughts from a man who lived a long life full of great fortune. Died when he was 85 after heading the school that Aristotle built. I firmly believe he was right.

We can be agents of change in our world; in fact, that is all we are. People often say things like, “You really can’t change much.” “It is what it is.” The confusing part about this statement is that all we are doing is making changes. Nothing lasts forever; everything is always changing. I can sit still, and yet my breath is changing the oxygen into carbon dioxide. My body is changing the food I digest into cells for my body, which are falling off me and changing the composition of the air and ground.

We direct the change by the systems around us that tell us how to behave. They tell us to do things, and we respond by following them. These systems only exist because of our response to go with their measures of change. “It is what it is.” Should be “You are who you are.”

I wrote this little bit on Sunday, August 18, 2020, the night before Michelle Obama described the current president’s failures as “It is what it is.” Good omen, maybe.