It is what it is.
I heard that when I was first told about my cancer.
I still hear it said today.
It appears to be a cultural response to chaos and bad news where we are made to feel that questioning why something has happened is really rather futile and not worth our while.
We just have to accept that the situation can’t be changed and we just have to carry on regardless. It’s out of our hands.
But this thought terminating cliché isn’t helpful. It’s actually quite toxic. It’s certainly very damaging.
Why?
Well, for starters, it reduces my illness to some sort of bad luck hand of fate and something I have to live with until such a time that I don’t.
It also closes down the conversation about what ‘it’ was caused by. It can’t simply be a case of it being what it is. It isn’t. Something triggered it.
It also blocks the very real possibility that a situation can be changed.
It prevents us from taking back control by reducing us to unquestioning passive patients happy to withdraw into total resignation.
Perhaps the anti-intellectual tautophrase “It is what it is” is said in the hope that we won’t pursue ‘the why’ and instead we just get on with it the best way we can and ‘soldier on’.
You can’t pass cancer off as easily as this.
This doesn’t wash when you are a critical thinker.
It doesn’t wash when you are prepared to fight for your life.
Here’s why:
- I need to make sense of it.
- I need to fight my corner.
- I need to rock the boat.
- I need to upset the status quo.
- I need to have a say what happens to me.
- I need to change my circumstances.
- I need to be heard.
I don’t accept that this is ‘how the die rolls’. I don’t accept that life has just unfolded this way because it was all ‘part of a bigger plan’ for me.
‘God works in mysterious ways’ is another thought terminating cliché cancer folks will hear.
To this day, no one has been able to tell me why I got what I got. It’s been labelled a ‘mystery’ and unsurprising as ‘1 in 2’ of us get cancer.
Well, people get cancer for lots of different reasons. It is highly multidimensional and can be fluid, involving complex processes but some of these are preventable.
Cancer patients are no strangers to the ‘it is what it is’ thought terminating cliché and I should imagine that many have heard it and recycled it themselves too.
I’ve never accepted this simplistic narrative or felt comfortable hearing it because there is always a reason. There are many reasons.
When bad things happen to good people, it’s simply bad luck or genetics. No it isn’t.
Where’s the data on my cancer? Where has the accountability gone? Who is looking into it?
Apparently no one, because the cost of doing so would be too much so cancer gets passed off as ‘one of those things’.
Resigned to my fate?
Not a chance. It will be what I make of it.
I need to live and so that’s exactly what I’m committed to doing.
Ceci n’est pas un cliché.
Keep up the good work John – I cant pretend to understand what this sort of diagnosis does to the soul , but from what I understand from your posts on twitter , well , I’d try to give it the best I have to offer , as you clearly have – Im not in your league in the positivity stakes but I find your output quite brilliant – you help so many , your positivity is amazing- if I had a pound for every time I’ve put on the walking boots because of you, well, I’d be a richer man – 10 k today 😀
Well done fella.- thanks !
Andrew, this is really very generous of you. Thank you for your great comments!
Thank you John for all your encouraging posts. Not only are you helping those that have cancer but you are helping those that are doing everything they can to help their loved ones who have cancer. Everything you said is “spot on!”
Sharon, thank you for your kind words and I’m pleased what I have to say can help others. Much appreciated!