How to Love Your Fate: Amor Fati
This Stoic philosophy turns struggles into strength #53
Amor Fati is a fascinating concept from Stoicism. It can be translated as “love of fate.” It describes an attitude of loving anything that happens to you, even suffering and other negative events. It can teach us to be more mindful of our daily lives and guide us through obstacles on the way.
But what does it even mean to love your own fate? And is it good for your mental health?
Nietzsche
This concept is often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously wrote:
“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—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it.”
There is a lot of interesting stuff in these two sentences. What does he want to say here? Firstly, he believes amor fati is a formula for human greatness, something that will help people reach their full potential. Secondly, he thinks that a person who has mastered amor fati does not want to change anything in their life: “wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backwards, not in all eternity,” meaning you can be happy with how it is now, without longing for something to change. It also means we shouldn’t think things have to be different in the past, present or future.
I don’t think Nietzsche is telling us to be unambitious and content with the status quo here. I think he means that we shouldn’t try to change something that we have no control over, wishing something to have happened otherwise is not productive, and this effort could be used for something more positive.
The important bit
Epictetus has a quote that may help you make sense of this concept.
“Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.”
One important thing that you might miss is that amor fati is not just about accepting your difficulties, but actually loving them. So not only enduring, but also loving these obstacles.
This philosophy is not only about getting over life’s challenges, it encourages us to see these challenges as an opportunity for growth.
A lot of us live with the idea that our lives have to change and that we have to constantly try to make our lives better. We are caught up in the negative thinking that our lives are bad by default and something has to be done to improve them. But what if our lives are good by default? What if there is nothing to fix, but only a bunch of opportunities to make our lives even better? Amor fati offers this great view that our lives do not need constant reimagining, but rather just being more ok with what you can’t control, and even loving what you get on your way.
We are doing everything to the best of our current abilities, and there is no need to beat yourself up for your past mistakes, present misfortunes, or future overthinking.
If something has happened to you, amor fati encourages you to take up the mindset of being grateful and happy that it happened— that means your fate has something planned for you, and even a closed door will mean that another door has opened somewhere. We can all learn from this concept and bit by bit, start to trust and love our fate. It’s a comforting concept in theory, but it's just pretty hard to execute.
How do you love this?
I love this philosophy and how it tries to eliminate harmful overthinking and potential anxiety linked to thinking that your life could have been better. One question I have is how do you love all the bad stuff that happens to you? How do you love something terrible? Doesn’t it kind of force us into framing everything positively? I wonder if such overly positive thinking may lead to the suppression of our negative emotions.
Last night, I was waiting for a bus. It was dark and cold outside. It came 20 minutes late. I was frustrated but tried my best to be ok with this situation because I couldn’t control it anyway. But oh my god, how do I love it? No idea. One thing I thought about was maybe turning the frustration into gratefulness for being there in the first place, like having a place to go to using that bus.
Okay, the bus is easy, but how do you love extremely hard situations like somebody close passing away? This one is complicated. Maybe a way to deal with this is adopting a mindset that the reason you have these feelings is because of your deep appreciation for that person and your relationship with them. The feeling of grief is the manifestation of your value to that relationship. But it’s still hard, isn’t it? You still feel that grief and it’s hard to just channel that energy into love that easily.
Maybe we don’t have to take this concept to an extreme and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Maybe it’s good enough to be aware of our emotions, see where they come from, and strive to be more positive in our lives. Amor fati is easier said than done, but we can take the basic principles in this philosophy and apply them to our mindset.
Final thoughts
We all need a way to take a break from negativity and whatever is happening to us. Amor Fati offers a way to reframe your life into something more positive. Reframing it into a mindset of love for your life can help with embracing the challenges and the joys of living. If this is what life has in store for you, then you might as well be happy about it, you don’t get to choose.
Perfecting amor fati can be very hard though. You have to be careful to not bottle up and ignore your emotions, but see where they are coming from— this will help you cope. And remember that perfecting it isn’t the goal, but if you can take away something useful for yourself, it will benefit you greatly.
Amor fati is not about blind optimism or denying negative emotions but about finding meaning in every experience, it teaches us to treat obstacles as a fuel that can keep us going, rather than something that stops us. If you practice loving your fate, life can be beautiful—not despite its imperfections, but because of them.
Marcus Aurelius, a former Roman emperor put it perfectly in his meditations:
“The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.”
Thank you for reading this month’s issue, let me know what you think in the comments!