I’ve been pondering this phrase, and ‘it is what it is’

A pair of businessmen were walking down Riverside Avenue, discussing their office politics, when I heard one of them deliver this capper: “Well, it is what it is.”

The other nodded sagely. No one can refute the truth that just about everything is, in fact, what it is.

However, we may not all agree on another fundamental issue: Is this the lamest phrase ever invented? Or is it the most profound?

America has come to rely on “it is what it is” in board meetings, post-game interviews and virtually every single cell phone conversation overheard on the bus. Today, I’m going to explore both sides of the issue.

I’ll start with the easiest one first. Guess which one that is.

“It is what it is” is the most trite observation since “Wherever you go, there you are.” Or possibly since Popeye uttered the immortal line, “I yam what I yam,” although at least Popeye added the marginally more useful information, “and that’s all what I yam.”

“It is what it is” means nothing. It sheds exactly as much light on any given situation as saying, for instance, “I ate what I ate.”

You: Hey, Fred, what did you eat for lunch today?

Fred: I ate what I ate.

You: Fascinating. Thank you.

We can insert just about any verb we want in place of “is” and come up with the identical level of inanity every time. It wins what it wins. It screeches what it screeches. It bites what it bites.

See, the problem is really quite simple. In just about every situation, we already know that something can’t be what isn’t. The alternative is too weird to contemplate. Just thinking about it gives me a giant headache.

What we really need are some specifics about what it is, in the same way that we would prefer that Fred give us a little more detail about his lunch. Let’s imagine that those two guys on the street were talking about a crisis at work. Wouldn’t it have been at least slightly more useful to say, “Here’s what it is. It’s a third-quarter revenue meltdown and cash-flow nightmare. We are, my friend, well and truly broke.”

Which leads me directly to the argument in favor of the phrase’s profound wisdom. If what we’re talking about is something unpleasant, unhappy and completely out of our hands – and usually it is, of course – then sometimes we’re better off just accepting it and moving on.

Isn’t that probably what most people mean when they say “it is what it is”? It’s just another way of saying, “You can complain all you want, but it won’t change the reality. Save your breath.”

This concept has been accepted for centuries, from the teachings of Zen to the teachings of Paul McCartney, who famously sang, “Let it be.” That’s simply another way of saying: Just accept.

There’s a well-known “serenity” prayer that goes like this: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

So if people say “it is what it is” as a way of putting into practice the first part of that prayer, then maybe this phrase is, in its own simple way, profound.

So instead of rolling my eyes the next time I hear some baseball player say “it is what it is” when discussing his game-losing blunder, maybe I should simply let it be.

That’s one option. Or I can crusade for the global banishment of this phrase forever. God grant me the wisdom to figure out which.