Many years ago I had a boss who could drive me crazy with just five little words: “It is what it is.” He said it all the time. And every time I would think, “It doesn’t have to be what it is. Are we not working in local government to make things better?” Oh, how naïve I was. But then tonight I watched Michelle Obama’s keynote speech on the first night of the Democratic National Convention: Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what is. It is what it is. Aha! As Michelle Obama clearly displayed, the power in this overused, trite phrase is knowing when to invoke it. The Japanese have a phrase, shikata ga nai, meaning “it cannot be helped.” Which I realized could be translated to, “It is what it is.” My Nisei grandma would often say a shortened version of this: shō ga nai, and I admired it as evidence of her…
Leave a Comment