<aside> TLDR: There's no doubt that the ~it iz what it iz~ mindset can be very helpful in situations we genuinely cannot control. But when it **becomes the default response to annoyances, it often leads to complacency and fogs one’s ability to problem-solve
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My proposition: people are often too quick to accept various annoyances as ‘it izz what is izz’.
My white shoes catch my eye before I look to the expanse of mud ahead, thick and sticky from the rain. Which path do I take?
A decent number of people took the muddy path A shortcut, but come winter and rainy spring days, many started opting for the long way, path B.
You know what I chose practically every single time?
the mud.
pov ur walking in the mud
the daily consequences…
Yeah my shoes got muddy but you know ~ i t i zzzz w h a t i t i zzzz ~ I just could not make myself take the longer path – if getting my shoes dirty was the cost of getting to the bus stop faster, then so be it.
But one day, as I was navigating the muddy path, gauging how to minimize ‘mud-to-shoe contact’, I saw something new: someone had taken a ginormous flat plank of wood and placed it across the worst sections of the mud pit.
From that plank alone, the amount of mud on my shoes halved. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?
I realized I had just accepted that getting an absurd amount of mud on my shoes was the price I had to pay for getting to the bus stop faster , so it didn’t even cross my mind to think of ways to make the situation any better.
Ironically, a solution to the problem had been there all along – it being a construction site meant it was muddy everywhere, but it also meant there were huge planks of unused wood and materials everywhere. But because I believed I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too – have clean shoes and a fast trip – I didn’t even fathom ‘solutions’ being possible. In retrospect, I believe this is what’s referred to as complacency.
Whoever put that plank there thought ‘it iz not what iz’ – they were frustrated – so they did something about it. They didn’t just accept the situation with ‘it izzz what it izzz’, like I had.
‘It izz what it izz’ tends to suppress frustration, and though that’s sometimes useful, it can also erode our drive to instigate change and problem-solve in sub-par situations, leading to complacency.
Sometimes you can’t get clean shoes and get to the bus stop fast, but maybe you can have cleaner shoes and get there faster. This is to say that, getting everything you want may not always be possible, but believing you can achieve ‘both’ (and that sacrifices aren’t always a pre-requisite) often helps you get further and achieve more simply because you didn’t put a ceiling on yourself
a useful belief? one to strive for? maybe, idk yet