Many people have heard the words, “It is what it is”. These are words people use when they know that they have no power over a situation, a place, a person, or a group of people. “It is what it is” are words we might say after years of bondage, heartache, pain, and powerlessness. Can we change the unhealthy and harmful choices of another person? Not really. We know we can be supportive, and we might supply this person with many buffers and chances to change, but if this person cannot, or will not change their choices, what are we to do? Perhaps we work behind the scenes to try and help. Maybe we give chance after chance and forgive the harms that have be done to us, or others. Maybe we continue to love, hope and pray. Perhaps there comes a time we have to let go. Perhaps we have done every possible thing that was in our ability to try and help this person. Somehow we come to accept complete defeat. We pass no ill judgement realizing we are human. It’s not always painless. It just is what it is. In reality, we also might have to accept things about ourselves. Many recovering people accept the disorders they live with. Perhaps we need treatment and we must do what we have to do to be well. Perhaps we don’t want to, but we know we have to. Also to be healthy we need to live in the present. Some of us do this one day at a time, trying to hold no ill feelings against any other human being. Living this way is sometimes called radical acceptance. We have no choice. This also just is what it is. All of us are human. This is our saving grace.
