Don’t you hate it when people say that? “It is what it is.” 😏 It sounds dismissive. Flat. Like a shrug. Like we’re supposed to accept whatever is happening, swallow our feelings, and move on. Maybe what bothers me about that phrase is that it’s so often true. Something happened. Something changed. Something exists that I don’t like. I can argue with it, rage about it, judge it, blame somebody for it, replay it seventeen different ways in my head, and it will still be there. Remember that acceptance is not agreement.We struggle to accept reality all the time. We debate changes in our lives, our relationships, our bodies, our government, our world. We worry about how other people behave, the decisions they make, the things they believe, and how they load the dishwasher. Now, I don’t always get annoyed. I think about how I’d do it differently. Better, obviously. ‘Cuz, you know, reality would be much more efficient if everyone checked with me first. Imagine the weight of that. Still, we carry some version of it all the time: the idea that things should be different simply because we believe they should be. There’s a whole industry that knows exactly how good we are at this.Media didn’t invent outrage. Social media didn’t invent judgment, resentment, fear, or the irresistible urge to tell somebody on the internet that they are wrong. They got it from our own behavior. The platforms just learned how much attention we’ll give it. * Outrage gets clicks. * Disgust gets shares. * Fear keeps us always checking. We complain about the rage machine as though it exists somewhere outside of us, but we are part of the machinery every time we feed it our attention. And I do it too. That right there is the uncomfortable truth. A friend once told me a story she said comes from the Cherokee tradition. A grandfather tells a child that two wolves fight inside us. One is fed by anger, resentment, fear, jealousy, hate. The other by compassion, kindness, hope, love. The child asks which wolf wins. The grandfather says, “The one you feed.” I think about that one a lot. What am I feeding right now? I’m not saying anger is bad; it can tell us something important. It can show us where a boundary has been crossed or where something needs our attention. It can move us to act. But there’s a difference between listening to anger and feeding it all day. There’s a difference between recognizing something is wrong and letting that one thing take over the whole landscape. And there’s a difference between caring deeply and believing I have to remain angry in order to prove that I care. Sometimes I catch myself in that. Reading one more article. One more comment. Rehearsing one more argument with somebody who isn’t even in the room. Sometimes I see it in time. “Oh! I’m feeding this.” When I see it , it helps me put a little space around the emotions. I’ll get out of my head for a minute with a walk, see the trees, listen to the birds or whatever is actually here instead of the griping in my head. The thing I’m angry about is likely still true when I come back. I just don’t have to give it everything. That’s where equanimity comes in. Equanimity isn’t indifference. It isn’t pretending everything is fine. It isn’t giving up, becoming passive, or deciding that injustice doesn’t matter. It’s being able to see what is here without losing yourself inside it. Could be that I can change something, speak up, help, vote, make a call, set a boundary, have a hard conversation. Could be I need another perspective, or it just needs time to play itself out. Lots of times I realize the thing I’ve been feeding doesn’t actually deserve this much of my life. Things change. People disappoint us. Systems fail. Plans fall apart. We don’t always get our way. Flexibility doesn’t mean collapsing under that. It means being able to recognize what’s true, respond to what we can, and keep living. * To still notice beauty. * To still laugh. * To still help somebody. * To still love people. * To still be kind, even when we don’t particularly like someone. * To remember that humanity can be ugly without deciding ugliness is all there is. So yes. It is what it is. (I still don’t particularly like the phrase.) Maybe the question isn’t whether I like what is happening. Maybe the question is: What am I feeding now? Get full access to Microdosed Mindfulness at www.microdosedmindfulness.com/subscribe
