Happy Sunday Readers,
New form of anxiety in my life: Reading each entry after it has gone out, and seeing a bunch of typos. No matter. I’m excited for this entry, typos and all.
Amor Fati
It is no secret that many of us spend much time wishing for things to be different. We pray for better circumstances, easier challenges, and for our problems to disappear. We become resentful towards life for putting us in terrible conditions. Even when they change, we hold onto that resentment and might even blame present actions on past experiences.
The task of a philosopher is that we should bring our will into harmony with whatever happens, so that nothing happens against our will, and nothing that we wish for fails to happen. - Epictetus
This is the transformative value in practicing a fundamental stoic principle: Amor Fati — Love of fate. In this, we do not seek to erase the past, we accept things for what they are — the good and the ugly — and we seek to make the best out of it. By practicing this idea, you are not resigned, passive, or accepting defeat. It is actually the opposite. It is the first step required — with which requires a great deal of courage — to not only make the most out of what happens to you, but to have clarity to see the valuable opportunities that used to pass you by.
A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it — Marcus Aurelius
By making this adjustment, we can focus on embracing every moment rather than avoiding it, and blaming it for all your misfortune.
As Robert Greene said: “Accept the fact that all events occur for a reason, and that it is within your capacity to see this reason as positive.” This is also to suggest that no experience in and of itself is the source of our success or failure based on any objective measure, but that we determine the outcome based on the meaning we give these experiences.
The question is whether you will have the courage to use what has happened, and what will happen as fuel to build and establish yourself concretely in the world, or whether you’ll use it as an excuse to continue with expediency and mediocrity.
Thomas Edison, as his factory — and his life’s work — goes up in flames, says to his son: “Go get your mother and all of her friends. they will never see a fire like this again“
If you wish for whatever happens, to happen the way it happens, you’ll never be unsatisfied.
🎓 Actionable Tips
Control How You Respond
Much of fate is simply out of our control. We don’t choose how tall we get, where we are born, or what people say and do. What we can control, is how we respond. This is the crux of Amor Fati. Instead of wanting things to turn out a certain way, you should welcome them the way the happen. When what you want, and what happens are disconnected, you can never be satisfied. Whatever happens, did not happen to you, it happened for you. Accept it, embrace it, bare it, make something of it.
Clarify Acceptance
To ambitious and innovative people, acceptance is a very scary term. You don’t get to where you are by accepting the status quo, and resigning to your limitations. For the ancient Stoics, accepting that what you cannot control is the first step to pursuing opportunity. You cannot create immense wealth, challenge the norm, and change the world by complaining about what you have been assigned by fate. Once you have accepted the terms, you are now able to do everything in your power to reach greater heights. You are no longer limited by your circumstances, you are limited by what you do about it.
Loving it
It is not only about being able to merely accept and bear what has happened, but it is to love what has happened. To do this is to capture the full essence of opportunity, and maximise the satisfaction and wellbeing in your life.
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it…but love it. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Will it take near perfect conditions for you to begin to live?
Just something to consider.
Sources
Kishimi, I., Koga, F. (2017). The Courage to be Disliked. Allen & Unwin
Holiday, R. Amor Fati: The Formula for Human Greatness. https://dailystoic.com/amor-fati-love-of-fate/
The School of Life. Nitzsche, Regret and Amor Fati. https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/nietzsche-regret-and-amor-fati/