Amor Fati

Remember last post when I said I wouldn’t use a pretentious origin story with some Latin word at the beginning? Throw that out the window. Now. This one is very dear to me and changed my everyday life.

Amor Fati is a Latin term which translates to “love of fate,” or “love of one’s fate.” This philosophy behind this term is you making peace with what is fated for you, and you learning to find joy in its finalization. I get that this may seem kind of strange and nonsensical at first, but the manifestation of this in one’s life is grand. Things really start to make sense and sort themselves out when you let this phenomenon heal your wounds. This is another one of those fundamentals that you will actually find in every mainstream religion. This one, however, is philosophy and is born of the great Stoics.

You did not get a job. You interviewed three times, thought it was in the bag, and you’re snubbed with a “sorry, we went in a different direction” email. Not even a phone call—typical corporate shills. Let’s also add in that you are behind on rent, a car payment, you are having to feed your child Ramen noodles, and can’t even afford to see that pure excitement in her face when you buy her a $9.99 Barbie. The stress, shame & guilt is a weight too heavy to carry. You feel like a failure in all regards. This is the human condition, and half of this is human emotion—something healthy and necessary. Within the mourning process and added stress, as you begin to beat your psyche to a pulp, you tell yourself you did this or that wrong and it is all your fault that you did not get the job. You wish you could go back in time to the point that you said something that you deem as stupid, and you lose yourself in the dysmorphia of the past. This is crippling, and it will source depression, anxiety and failure to grow.

Let me drop this bomb on you to suck on: there is no true failure in life except for the failure to grow. Failures are the most vital components of life. When you lift, you (should) be lifting until failure—until the point that your muscles can no longer lift that weight. Your body’s response to this failure is growth into a more capable Self. This is how muscles are formed. It is one of the simplest concepts, and our psychology is bound to this same production. Its varies in that some growth which occur naturally as you fail within one’s Self, but it is your responsibility to find the highest capacity of said growth by exploring your outcome and one—how not to repeat it, two—what to do in order to pick yourself up, and three—how to improve yourself to face that same obstacle again and overcome it twofold. “Fail early and fail fast” is one of the most fundamental quotes supporting all of this. Failure is encouraged. I think Eminem said something like if you have no adversity in your life, you’ve never really taken any risks. There is no greatness achieved without risk and failure. You cannot have success without failure. So get used to it, learn to welcome it, and get really good at overcoming it. Mourn quickly, then return to the path.

So, once you understand the vitality of failure, you are close to understanding why you must learn to love your fate. The next lesson is simple but takes people a long time: you must be so sick and tired of tripping yourself up via bad decision making, that you stop doing it altogether. You must balance your self esteem to the point that you feel you deserve good things, and you will stop being the reason you do not have those good things. This is a deep subconscious practice that must be worked on intentionally. Some will practice affirmations to align their subconscious to stop self-sabotaging. Some of the most common forms of self-sabotaging are: smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, bad dieting, lack of exercise, entertaining bad relationships & friendships that influence you badly, choosing to wallow instead of looking for resolution, etc. Knowingly making bad decisions—and you know what they are—will communicate to yourself that bad is what you deserve. You must choose health, enlightenment, strength and evolution of Self daily. If you put yourself in an existential holding pattern, you will be 55 with heart disease on your death bed full of regret. Because you will have held yourself back for so long from all of the things you could have done, and it is now too late. Your childhood dreams have expired. The end.

All of that should be very scary. You may be offended, even. And I hope you are. Because those are truths which your offense will not budge even a little bit. Either you accept them and grow from their truth, or you die full of regret. Your choice.

Now back to loving things: fate. Once you have no more tolerance for self sabotage, and you evolve from your failures, you can now fully embrace your fate. Loving one’s fate means to have no beef with what has happened… because it was meant to happen. There’s nothing you can do to change it, so you should not waste a single breath wishing you could. You will be at peace with what comes to pass, and you will not mourn its passing. You will love that it came and left. This includes relationships & friendships, trips & destinations, old careers & new careers, who you used to be & who you are becoming. You can smile upon those past destinations, and use all current energy towards arriving at your next. This aids in manifesting your Higher Self, because you are no longer at war with a past that is gone and does not think about you at all. The past is dead and gone, and so should your thoughts of it be. The practice of Amor Fati leads to a detachment from the past, and a detachment from outcomes that are out of your control.

Some may think that practicing Amor Fati leads to laziness and inaction, but it’s actually the opposite. To reach enlightenment regarding your fate, you will have already begun to practice major action in your life. I don’t make the rules, this is just how it works. Go argue with a Buddhist monk about it. You will begin to create real boundaries on what you can control and what you are responsible for, and you will remove attachment from things that you cannot control—because it is not your fate to control them. This will help to alleviate anger, and regret of course. Didn’t get the job? Cool, mourn it quickly as the human you are and move on. Accept that it was not fated for you, and get back to pursuing what is fated for you. The relationship didn’t work? I’m so incredibly happy for you, because you do not have to waste a single more second with someone who isn’t fated for you. More time would have lead to more heartbreak. Didn’t get into the school? You are fated to be elsewhere. Divorce papers in front of you? Your fated family will thank you for finding them. Your lessons will be learned, and you will not falter in pursuing the next one. Your reaction to all of these life circumstances will be determined by how you view their occurrence. If you understand you are not in control of anything but yourself, why would you waste any energy trying to? Understand what is yours and move along. Stay focused.

The revered philosopher Marcus Aurelius said this: “Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?”