Amor Fati

Amor Fati

Before we get deeper into the cycle of karma I find a strong need to address the role fate plays in our day to day. Speaking of days, at the end of them we have but a small amount of control over our extrinsic experience. The influence from others as well as the environment are out of our control. What little control we do have comes from within. Suffering is inevitable but misery is an option after all.

In Latin, there is a phrase, Amor Fati, that gets to the heart of this concept (no pun intended 🤣). Amor Fati can be translated as “Love of One’s Fate”. The idea is that since you have almost no control over your external experiences and those experiences are going to happen anyway and we know that misery is an option then why not simply love whatever may happen? I don’t want to sound like the privileged, white , male that I am as I know there is great suffering in the world as well as abhorrent injustice so I have no intentions of diminishing other’s plight. That said, there’s value in this philosophy that can bring great relief for many. To expand on the idea, our lives will have a myriad of outcomes. From success to failure, abundant joy to deep sadness, from love to loss and of course, everything in between. Amor Fati gives us the opportunity to appreciate all of life’s possibilities the good and the bad.

Remember, much of life you cannot control so sometimes you just gotta sit back and enjoy the ride, even if the road is a bumpy one.