There are two kinds of people in this world.
The first kind is me on a Tuesday when the email chain hits 17 replies, someone misread a proposal, the grocery store is out of half-and-half, and the self-checkout machine has decided I am a criminal.
The second kind is Mae.
Mae is the accounting manager so calm it makes you suspicious. The kind of calm where you want to gently check her pulse just to confirm she is, in fact, human.
I will call her ready to commit light arson.
“Mae. I am about to lose my entire mind. These people—”
Silence.
Not dismissive silence. Not bored silence. Just… observant silence.
And then she’ll say it.
“It is what it is.”
Excuse me?
I’m pacing. I’m gesturing. I’m three seconds from drafting an email that ends careers.
Mae? Steady. Watching the noise I can’t see because I’m inside it.
“We can’t kill ourselves over it,” she’ll add.
And somehow that lands.
Because she’s not minimizing it. She just refuses to amplify it.
She sees:
What matters.
What doesn’t.
What’s fixable.
What’s just ego.
Meanwhile, I’m over here trying to solve emotional algebra.
Mae is the rare breed of calm that doesn’t feel passive. It feels strategic.
She doesn’t ignore chaos. She just refuses to join it.
Which, frankly, is infuriating when you’re mid-spiral.
But here’s the truth:
She’s one of very few people I would consider donating a kidney to.
Possibly a piece of liver.
Not both. I have standards.
Because everyone needs one person in their life who can look at the storm, shrug gently, and say:
“It is what it is.”
And mean it in a way that lowers your blood pressure by ten points.
Mae doesn’t put out fires.
She just stands there so calmly that the fire gets embarrassed and burns itself out.