shikata ga nai

Recently I was trying to write a brief email message in which I expressed concern to a friend about her fatalistic attitude toward some self-destructive behaviors. But that's another story. As is often the case with me, I experienced the tip of the tongue phenomenon while writing. For some reason, I was convinced that there was an expressive French phrase to replace "fatalistic."

I asked several colleagues for assistance, but they were unable to help. Then I perused a long web page of French expressions which was fascinating but could not offer an answer. The closest I came was laissez-faire and c'est la vie, neither of which sounded serious enough. Later I realized that que sera, sera was closer, but on thinking about it, I couldn't quite figure out exactly what language that phrase represented. According to this Wikipedia article, it's a bastardization of a bastardization, which explains my confusion.

In all my searching for fatalistic phrases, the Japanese language won hands down with shikata ga nai, which can be used to describe either a courageous endurance or a fatalistic helplessness according, once again, to Wikipedia's entry.

My friend has now adopted Que Sera, Sera as her theme song and shikata ga nai as her life philosophy.