It's from seinfeld series


Jerry: Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and
how little we've grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better
self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, **we know it's not to be**, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are
to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing. 

I can't get the verb "be". Does it have any thing that's dropped?