“What will be will be”
I Heard You Paint Houses“What will be will be” is the motto Frank Sheeran adopted after returning from war, when thoughts of death led him to accept that neither birth nor death was within his control. The phrase expresses a change in his outlook: having survived the war, he worried less about what might happen to him.
Origin and Meaning
Sheeran says he often thought about dying after coming home. He reasoned that everyone had a birth date and a death date, and that neither could be controlled. The expression turns that reasoning into a compact rule for facing uncertainty: what happens will happen, whether or not worry can alter it.
Place in Sheeran’s Account
The motto is tied specifically to Sheeran’s reflection on wartime survival. He describes getting through the war as a reason to care less about what might happen afterward. In his account, the phrase is not a promise or an attempt to direct events, but a shorthand for resignation to their uncertainty.
