Amor Fati — Loving Your Fate
Amor fati is a Latin phrase meaning "love of fate." It does not mean passive resignation or pretending bad things are fine. It means choosing to embrace what happens to you, including the hard things, as part of your life rather than as interruptions to it. This week, seven short lessons will show you what that love actually looks like, why it makes you more resilient rather than weaker, and how to practice it in ordinary moments.
Passage
I shall presently discuss the means by which we can gain the ability to win and hold the affections of our fellow-men; but I must say a few words by way of preface. Who fails to comprehend the enormous, two-fold power of Fortune for weal and for woe? When we enjoy her favouring breeze, we are wafted over to the wished‑for haven; when she blows against us, we are dashed to destruction. Fortune herself, then, does send those other less usual calamities, arising, first, from inanimate Nature — hurricanes, storms, shipwrecks, catastrophes, conflagrations; second, from wild beasts — kicks, bites, and attacks. But these, as I have said, are comparatively rare.
— Cicero, On Duties 2.19
Reflection
Cicero approaches Fortune from the outside, describing her as an enormous two-fold power for good and for ill. He is less interested in inner transformation than in clear-eyed realism about the world's structure. But this passage fits the arc of amor fati because it names something important: Fortune's power is not unusual or personal. Hurricanes, storms, catastrophes, these happen to people. They are not aimed at you. Amor fati is partly the practice of depersonalizing difficulty, seeing it as part of the fabric of a world in which everyone is subject to Fortune, not as a verdict on your worth or your choices.
Go deeper
When something bad happened to you recently, how much energy did you spend trying to figure out what you did wrong or what it meant about you, rather than simply responding to the situation in front of you?
Practice
Depersonalize One Hard Thing
Think of a difficulty you are facing that you have been taking personally. Write two or three sentences describing it as if you were describing it happening to a stranger: factual, without the story of why it is unfair or what it says about you. Then read it back. Notice whether the stripped-down version changes how large it feels.