Today on February 14, 2021 also known as Valentine’s Day I am thinking about love. But not the romantic kind, that we associate with today’s date.
Amor fati is a Latin phrase that may be translated as “love of fate” or “love of one’s fate”. It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one’s life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary. Wikipedia
This concept written about by Nietzsche, is our relationship with our specific, idiosyncratic, unique life experiences. It means full acceptance of whatever happens. Not to be confused with apathy, Amor Fati is our proactive acceptance of life’s miracles and tragedies alike. Not looking forward, not looking back and accepting all that is.
This doesn’t mean loving the details of our challenges. Profound loss, financial insecurity, fire and illness are not experiences that we “desire” necessarily. But Amor fati means we don’t argue with reality. We don’t spend our valuable time in “what if” or “If only I’d have done XYZ” land. It means we face our circumstances head on, placing our focus in the current moment, strategizing, processing, planning and executing rather than licking our wounds.
Amor Fati is a way of life, not a goal to be met. Like anything we want get good at, we must practice again and again, over a lifetime to hone our skills of non-attachment, non-judgment and acceptance.
Next time you find yourself resisting reality (like ”heavy” traffic) or repeatedly re-living an unwanted experience, try letting it be neutral without labeling it.
The phrase “It is what it is” comes to mind. Not to suggest that we don’t have emotions and reactions to our circumstances, but if we can “love our fate” we don’t get caught up in them. We acknowledge what we feel, then go about the business of doing the next best thing in that moment.