It's Fine

I was on the highway through the town of Pátzcuaro, on the way to the laundromat. The parking for the businesses is next to the highway slow lane, where the mini buss drivers, in their Toyota Hi-aces, would come within millimeters of you, if you weren't careful. This is their lane. There's incentive to get off the road and park quickly in the tiny parking spaces, to avoid their wrath. 

In front of my laundromat was a single orange cone blocking the only parking space. I quickly moved the truck in front of the cone, jammed it in reverse, and crushed that poor cone as I took the only available space to avoided the minibus wrath. I grabbed the mangled cone from under the running board, smoothed it out, and put it back where I found it. A little worse for wear.

I hadn't noticed him, but an old man had been shoveling filth from the gutter. It was his cone I mangled. Rather than being angry, he looked at me with a bemused smile on his faith and said with a thick accent, "It's fine."

I smiled back at him in appreciation of his understanding of my predicament and said, "It's fine."

"It's fine." He said again, smiling.

"It's fine." I said, with a smile. And dropped off my laundry and went on my way.

And that's how "It's fine" became another one of our regular sayings in Mexico, along with "It is what is is." 

When I complained that every floor in our hotel was un-level, probably from earthquake damage? It's fine.

Today when I barely got the awning in before the wind could tear it off? It's fine.

It's fine is a less infuriating, more accepting, "it is what it is."

Give it a try.