It Is What It Is

Learning to say it is what it is over what we can't control frees the resources up that we need so we can respond to that which we can do something about.

Hello everyone!

I'm only at the beginning of the second full week of the year and already I can feel the benefit of 2024's completion being what it was. In my end of year review I looked back over how I'd managed my time over the course of last year and it was interesting to see what habits formed and stuck and what didn't. Given that hindsight is such a good teacher I thought this would be a good exercise to do having not done it before.

It was a good way to keep myself accountable because if I wasn't happy with who I'd become at year end, then there was only one culprit; the choices I had made all year long. Some small. Some significant. All of them add up in the end and, as I discovered during my grief counselling last year, there is a toll to be paid for every sacrifice and it will be paid in the end. Maybe not at the time, but all checks will balance out in the grand scheme of things...

It Is What It Is

Needless to say, finding that it's good to say "it is what it is" every once in a while and hearing that phrase after Tyson Fury had fought Oleksandr Usyk the first time resonated with me, I just wouldn't know it until the winter time loomed that it was a delayed activation of a resonation. When you know you have a tendency to respond in your feelings rather than outside and independent of them, it can be hard at times to say that. Saying that is a way of letting go and letting go is good. It stops you from falling into the trap of thinking you're in charge of the universe and reminds you that the universe moves on without your help.

It is what it is.

Try saying that over your situation. You know the one? It's the one that's niggling at the back, or front, of your mind right now and just won't... let... go! It's like a dog with a bone and you want that bone back but the dog won't give it, you know? That one!

It's not meant to diminish what you're going through but it is meant to diminish how you perceive it. Perception is everything. You can go from thinking a situation is hopeless or hopeful depending on what lens you use to view it. View it up close, as the sum total of your whole existence and it looks worse than it is. View it from afar and you realise it's only one drop in the ocean of time.

It'll be over soon. It'll be all over soon and everything will be okay.

Say that too...

It's all going to be alright!

Sometimes, we need to give ourselves permission to remember that it's all going to work out in the end, whether or not that end is how we expect it to be. It's all going to work out. In the end. All of it.

Take me, tomorrow is the anniversary of pop's death and it still hurts to this day. One minute it's like it did happen 3 years ago and the next it's like it happened only yesterday. But that's a sign of the close relationship I was lucky to have with him. Close. Like a best friend close.

It is what it is.

I can't change what happened, all I can change is what I do with what happened. Do I let it pull me down into a negative pit again? Or do I resist and, in the words of Picard, say "the line must be drawn here, this far, no farther!"?

I'll say that part once again so it sinks in...

I can't change what happened, all I can change is what I do with what happened...

My life is what it is today because of all the choices I've made up to today and if I'm serious about wanting to build my 2025 on top of what was achieved in 2024 then intentional is what I must be about how I utilise my time.

I've started reading "I Declare" again, by Joel Osteen. In the introduction he's been reminding me that my words have the power to shape my future for better or worse so it matters the way that I use them to talk about it.

Words matter.

I never used to think they did and, unfortunately, I'm reaping the toll paid from carelessly placed words that I spoke over myself in the past having become addicted to broken thought patterns that fuelled broken speech patters. Now that I'm aware of this, however, I am learning to tread more carefully, over time, with the way I speak about my future hopes and dreams as well as my present situation. My words are carving out a pathway for me that's either taking me closer to where I want to be, or further away.

Final Thought

If any of what I say has resonated with any of you dear readers in any way then that's great because I just want to be that other voice you come across that says something different to all that you've heard before.

I don't do it for clicks. I don't do it for likes. I don't do it to get a reaction.

I do this because I find writing so therapeutic for me to unpack what's going on internally and apparently I have received enough feedback from people to show me that I'm operating in my skillset when I use it like this.

It's taken a helluva lot of work for me to get here, where I am today, but I wouldn't trade this progress in for all the gems and all the gold in the universe. Knowledge is potential power that activates the moment you use it and I'm determined to use what I know to get better. Better at handling life's issues. Better at what I do. Better at who I am becoming. Better.

Things can only get better!

Until next time folks...

Peace out!

===TLP===