The idea of 'amor fati' is to love and embrace whatever the outcome is; no matter how hard we work towards a certain goal.
Video by Einzelgänger
Key Takeaways
Excessive worry about the future causes a very undesirable experience called anxiety.
This could be short-term anxiety during the day because of something you’ve planned that evening or it could be long-term anxiety about the future that is completely uncertain and out of your control.
The Stoics had a trick to end this anxiety called Amor Fati.
There is a tremendous power if you’re able to embrace whatever happens. This is what German philosopher Nietzsche, although he rejected stoicism, wrote about amor fati,
"My formula for human greatness is amor fati; That one wants nothing to be different, not in the future, not in the past, not for all eternity. Not only to endure what is necessary, still less to conceal it — all idealism is falseness in the fate of necessity — but to love it..."
Let’s imagine there are two versions of yourself: the anxious you and a stoic you.
You work in a company that recently announced that because of a reorganization, a great number of its employees will be laid off.
You heard the news one day after visiting your doctor who told you that you might suffer from a chronic illness, also the relationship with your partner isn’t going well at all.
The obstacles that have appeared in your life are of such significance that the chances are high that your life will drastically change.
This change is what worries the anxious version of yourself the most. Especially because the human mind tends to judge change within a spectrum of two polar opposites: desire and aversion.
When life changes into a desirable position, you’ll experience great pleasure.
In most cases people become infatuated and reside on a proverbial pink cloud when they experience a radical life change—like winning the lottery, but when life changes into a position you averse—like losing a loved one or ending up in prison, you’ll experience great pain.
Either way, life goes on and no matter where you end up, there will always be one thing that you have to work with which is the present moment.
From the story I told, we could easily say that your life is changing into a direction that you averse.
The anxious you starts worrying and worrying and keeps you up at night to worry some more, “will I be laid off and if so what am I supposed to do next and what if my chronic illness hinders me to find another job, what if I can’t pay my mortgage and more what if my partner leaves me?”
Well some of these questions are up to you and others are not. The underlying truth is that at the end of the day, your future is beyond your control and that’s exactly the problem of the anxious you. It’s a control freak.
Control freaks simply cannot handle insecurity, therefore they generate anxiety because the anxious mind cannot figure out what the future will bring, but keeps trying anyway.
The Stoic you however has a different approach. The stoic you fully embraces fate no matter what.
Amor fati doesn’t mean that you sit on your ass all day and let life passing by.
It means that you make the best out of every moment. It means that you work towards your goals, give them your everything, but when the results turn out to be different than expected, fully embrace and accept your fate.
If you keep your job great. If you get laid off, make the best out of it. Who knows what opportunities will present themselves to you?
If you turn out to be healthy, great. If you turn out to be chronically ill, make the best out of it.
I mean wouldn’t be a challenge to make your life worth living despite the fact you’re sick. Many people do and they are humanity’s greatest inspirations.
So your partner stays by your side, great. Your partner leaves you, well good riddance, you’re now able to focus on yourself and experience things like personal growth, deep introspection, and the joy of Solitude, and who knows, a more suitable person might appear in your life along the way.
Amor Fati puts you in a position in which you simply can’t go wrong and when things can’t go wrong, there’s nothing to worry about and when there’s nothing to worry about you don’t let anxiety waste your life’s energy and make you feel miserable.
Embrace your destiny no matter what and you’ll have nothing to fear. That’s the stoic anxiety hack. The sun is shining. Enjoy life.
Key Takeaways
Amor fati means ‘love of fate’, and is a concept in Stoic philosophy but also in the works of Nietzsche.
The idea is to love and embrace whatever the outcome is; no matter how hard we work towards a certain goal. This way, we detach ourselves from possible results which enhances the ability to focus on the task at hand, and take away the anxiety that we may have concerning the future.
The next question is of course: how can we do this?
Love of fate.
The concept is simple; implementing it is more difficult because most minds drift off to the future very easily, and begin to fantasize about things that might happen.
- When we are restless because of the future, we either desire or averse a certain outcome.
- When we desire a certain outcome, the idea of not getting it makes us anxious.
- When we averse a certain outcome, the idea of incurring it makes us anxious.
Thus, it’s the attachment to outcomes that creates the turmoil in our minds.
To solve this, Epictetus argues that we should remove desire and aversion in regards to things that are not in our control.
"If you desire any of the things which are not in your own control, you must necessarily be disappointed; and of those which are, and which it would be laudable to desire, nothing is yet in your possession. Use only the appropriate actions of pursuit and avoidance; and even these lightly, and with gentleness and reservation."
This is easier said than done.
- For example: we naturally look for wealth, healthy food, friendship, companionship, et cetera.
The Stoics say, however, that these external factors are not necessary to be happy. Which is great news, because they are not in our control, so they would be very unreliable sources of happiness.
Nevertheless, many people worry endlessly about the future.
In order to reduce this maelstrom of anxious thoughts, trying to control the outcome is pointless, because we can’t.
What we can control however, is the position we take towards the outcome, which the following four ways will be about.
Four Ways to Practice Amor Fati
1. Purposefully expose yourself to the thing you averse.
Many people dread the idea of poverty for example, which isn’t so strange because in current society we are constantly told that being poor is a terrible thing.
Someone fearing poverty might ask oneself: how can I possibly live without a 4-bedroom house, a car of a certain brand, two vacations a year, eating in a restaurant at least once a week, and so on?
The key to reduce the fear of certain outcomes, it to actually expose ourselves to them so we experience that a perceived negative outcome is not so bad.
This way, we become familiar with hardship and, thus, prepared for it.
"It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence."
So, when you fear poverty: how about living like a poor person for a number of days, in order to discover that being poor isn’t so bad as we think?
Another common fear is the fear of being single and alone.
When you’re afraid of this, how about saying ‘no’ to relationships for a while, and try to rely on yourself for happiness?
Once we find out that being single actually can be great thing; we stop the fear of being alone once we are in a relationship.
This also prevents us from staying in abusive relationships, so we can take steps into the direction we want without fearing the consequences.
2. See change as an opportunity.
At the same time, I also got other things in return; as if life always tries to balance itself out.
After I finished college I was not able find a job because of the financial crisis. The worst case scenario happened: I had to work several simple jobs that were not what I wanted to do.
When I look back, the experiences I had during these years were absolutely life changing. I was able to do things and develop myself in certain ways, that I would never have done if my life turned out as I had previously hoped, and I’m happy things happened as they happened.
"Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well."
In his meditations, Marcus Aurelius states the we should look for…
"...constant awareness that everything is born from change. The knowledge that there is nothing nature loves more than to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it."
3. Realize that happiness is relative.
Happiness is adaptive.
In 1978 there was a study by Brickman, Coates and Janoff-Bulman, who wanted to find out if happiness is relative. In order to find that out, they studied a group of lottery winners, a group of paralyzed accident victims and a control group.
Of course, we would expect that a lottery winner is much happier than someone who ended up paralyzed by an accident. And we also would expect that lottery winners are much happier than the control group, that didn’t win the lottery but weren’t paralyzed either.
In the first weeks or so, this was indeed the case. But one year later, the controls and the lottery winners were equally happy, and only slightly happier than the paralyzed accident victims.
So if happiness is relative: why should we fear the future?
The time and energy we spend on fearing the future is most likely worse than the future itself.
- Last year, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer. At this moment he has been given up by the doctors which means that he might not see the new year. When I visited him recently, he told me that he feels fantastic. He enjoys life to the fullest and is grateful for every day that is given to him.
So, whatever tragedy happens: we know that the new circumstances never exclude a sense of happiness and well-being. Moreover, we might unexpectedly feel even better than before in the face of hardship.
4. Be Present
That we need the external things associated with our current life situation to be happy is an illusion; happiness is relative, as well as unhappiness.
The future is just another path: not good, not bad; only if the mind makes it so.
Change is the very essence of life; resisting change is like resisting life. As soon as we resist change, we’re already in the future. Because instead of accepting the present moment we try to preserve it for the days to come.
Furthermore, we can say that there’s no future nor is there a past. There’s only now.
When fate comes, it comes in the present. That’s why embracing fate can only be done in the present moment.
So, when the future hasn’t arrived yet, why worry about it?
But when it comes, love it as it’s here. Love it before it’s gone, because if you don’t, you might regret that you didn’t enjoy the moment when it was right before you.
Amor fati is the art of embracing whatever happens and not needing a single day beyond the present.
“To-day and one other day have been the happiest of all!"