Who hasn’t heard the saying, “If it’s meant to be, it will be?” There have been songs written on it (Florida Georgia Line and Bebe Rexha, I’m looking at you), books written with this idea as the central theme, and many individuals claim to have adapted this seemingly simple notion as their mantra. And yet, there seems to be so much confusion over what exactly this phrase means for several reasons.

First, it can be a bit confusing. Does this phrase mean that if you want something, you shouldn’t HAVE to go after it wholeheartedly because, if it supposed to happen, it will occur regardless of the effort one puts in to see it to fruition?

Or does it mean that if you want something, pursue it, hustle for it, and if it does occur, it was fated to, and if it doesn’t, well, that it was destined not to?

Personally, I believe the second one. ‘If it’s meant to be, it will be’ is not a cop-out. It’s not an excuse for laziness, and it most certainly is not to blame if you don’t get what you want if you did not put in the work to achieve it. In my opinion, this phrase rather says, “Yes, I am going to do everything in my power to make this happen, and if it works out, it was supposed to. If it doesn’t, I have to trust that it’s for the best, that it’s not in the stars.”

Secondly, it suggests that, as human beings, we don’t have very much control over how our lives play out. This can either comfort you or unsettle you. It is a fact that life does not go according to any one human being’s plans for it. You can believe in God or the universe or in sheer luck that things unfold the way they do, but the truth is, we are only called to do what we can do, and to do as much as we can, and then we must trust that whatever is going to happen for the greater good will.

Life is perplexing and fascinating and messy but incredible. At times, it can be difficult to see why events must occur as they do. However, if you trust that whatever is meant to be will be, and allow that fact to free you, life seems a whole lot simpler, and you can relish in the fact that if something is truly destined to happen, it will materialize when the time is right.