Amor Fati and The Art of Acceptance
Amor Fati — a love of fate is the mindset that you take on for making the best out of anything that happens: Treating every moment — no matter how challenging — as something to be embraced, not avoided. To not only be okay with it but love it and be better for it. So obstacles and adversity become fuel for your potential.
Something happened that we wish had not. Which of these is easiest to change: our opinion or the event that is past? The answer is obvious. Accept what happened and change your wish that it had not happened. Stoicism calls this the “art of acquiescence” — to accept rather than fight every little thing.
When we accept what happens to us, after understanding that certain things — particularly bad things — are outside our control, we are left with this: loving whatever happens to us and facing it with unfailing cheerfulness and strength.
I am summarising 5 key learnings about the art of acceptance from stoicism.
1) IT’S NOT THE THING, IT’S WHAT WE MAKE OF IT
“When you are distressed by an external thing, it’s not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgment of it. And you can wipe this out at a moment’s notice.” — MARCUS AURELIUS
Imagine you’ve dreamed of a life in politics. You’re young, you’re vigorous, and you’ve held increasingly powerful positions over the course of your career. Then at thirty-nine, you start to feel run down. Your doctors tell you that you have polio and your life will never be the same. Your career is over — right? This is the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, now widely regarded as one of America’s greatest political leaders. He was, at middle age, diagnosed with polio after spending years preparing for and dreaming about the presidency. It’s impossible to understand FDR without understanding this disability. The “external thing” was that he was crippled — this was a literal fact — but his judgment of it was that it did not cripple his career or his personhood. Though he was certainly the victim of a then incurable disease, he wiped away — almost immediately — the victim’s mentality. Let’s not confuse acceptance with passivity.
2) THE STRONG ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY
“If we judge as good and evil only the things in the power of our own choice, then there is no room left for blaming gods or being hostile to others.” — MARCUS AURELIUS
A sign on President Harry Truman’s desk read, THE BUCK STOPS HERE. As president, with more power and control than pretty much anyone else, he knew that good or bad, there wasn’t anyone he could blame for stuff other than himself. There was no one to pass the buck to. The chain ended there, in the Oval Office. As the president of our own lives — and knowing that our powers begin and end with our reasoned choice — we would do well to internalize this same attitude. We don’t control things outside that sphere, but we do control our attitudes and our responses to those events — and that’s plenty. It’s enough that we go into every day knowing that there is no one to pass the buck to. It ends with us.
3. EVERYTHING IS CHANGE
“Meditate often on the swiftness with which all that exists and is coming into being is swept by us and carried away. For substance is like a river’s unending flow, its activities continually changing and causes infinitely shifting so that almost nothing at all stands still.” — MARCUS AURELIUS
“No man steps in the same river twice.” Because the river has changed, and so has the man. Life is in a constant state of change. And so are we. To get upset by things is to wrongly assume that they will last. To kick ourselves or blame others is grabbing at the wind. To resent change is to wrongly assume that you have a choice in the matter. Everything is Change. Embrace that. Flow with it.
4. HOPE AND FEAR ARE THE SAME
“ cease to hope and you will cease to fear. … The primary cause of both these ills is that instead of adapting ourselves to present circumstances we send out thoughts too far ahead.” — SENECA
Hope is generally regarded as good. Fear is generally regarded as bad. However, both are projections into the future about things we do not control. Both are the enemy of this present moment that you are actually in. Both mean you’re living a life in opposition to Amor Fati. It’s not about overcoming our fears but understanding that both hope and fear contain a dangerous amount of want and worry in them. And, sadly, the want is what causes the worry.
5. YOU’RE GOING TO BE OK
“Don’t lament this and don’t get agitated.” — MARCUS AURELIUS
There’s that feeling we get when something happens: It’s all over now. All is lost. What follows is complaints and pity and misery — the impotent struggle against something that’s already occurred. Why bother? We have no idea what the future holds. We have no idea what’s coming up around the bend. It could be more problems, or this could be the darkness before the dawn. There is one thing we can be sure of: whatever happens, we’re going to be OK.
To summarize, in our lives, sometimes, we get exactly what we want, other times we get precisely what we do not want. Whatever happens, always remember this. — Accept the fact that all events occur for a reason, and that it is within your capacity to see this reason as positive.
We can still take it a step further. Instead of simply accepting what happens, we can enjoy what has happened — whatever it is. It’s not just accepting, it’s loving everything that happens. To wish for what has happened to happen is a clever way to avoid disappointment because nothing is contrary to your desires. But to feel gratitude for what happens? To love it? That’s a recipe for happiness and joy.
