The meaning of amor fati is nestled inside this short story: There was an old farmer who had a herd of horses. One day, the horses broke through the fence and the whole herd ran off into the wild.
On hearing the unfortunate news, the old farmer’s neighbor came over and said, ‘This is really bad fortune for you.’ The old farmer simply replied, ‘Maybe.’
The next day, to everyone’s surprise, the herd returned but with a beautiful black stallion in their midst. This stallion was a valuable asset.
Again, the neighbor came over and said to the old farmer, ‘This is very good fortune for you.’ The farmer simply rejoined with ‘Maybe’.
The very next day, the farmer’s son tried to mount the new black stallion, fell, and broke his leg.
Once again, the neighbor appeared. ‘This is very bad fortune for you.’ Again, the farmer simply sighed and said, ‘Maybe.’
A week passed and the army came to the farmer’s village to press all the young men into service. The captain of the army came up to the old farmer and demanded that he hand over his only son.
Unfortunately, the farmer’s son was on crutches, nursing a badly broken leg and the army moved on to the next homestead.
The meaning of amor fati
This short story demonstrates some key components of the deeper meaning of amor fati. It shows that we must have the humility to acknowledge that we don’t really know if an outcome will be wholly good or bad. Causes almost always have unexpected effects. This is what makes life beautiful and interesting.
The story also shows that we must remain anchored under the crashing waves of life, ever confident in our abilities to navigate any twist or turn with virtue and grace. In this article, I’ll attempt to provide a definition of amor fati and provide insights on how to practice amor fati in Stoicism.
“When you come across a bad omen, like a black cat or a squawking raven, distinguish between reality and interpretation. Remind yourself, nothing is foreboding to me. All signs point to good luck if I interpret them that way. Whatever life brings, I can use it to my advantage.”
– Epictetus, The Manual
What does amor fati mean?
Amor fati is more than just a Latin phrase that translates to ‘the love of fate’. In Stoicism, amor fati is a binding thread that ties together a few different teachings of Stoic philosophy. Without amor fati, you can’t master The Dichotomy of Control, which is ignoring what is not within your control so that you can focus fully on what is within your control. Without amor fati, you can’t leverage The Art of Acquiescence, which is the practice of accepting the bad so that you can move past it.
For practicing Stoics, amor fati is about so much more than just peak performance. Amor fati is a practice that unlocks the beauty, wonder, and adventure of life itself. It’s standing at the edge of the precipice, looking down, feeling the fear, but jumping anyway into the cool blue water far below and reaping the reward of exhilaration.
We love to think that we’re in control. But, we’re not. Nature dictates everything that happens in your life.
The ancient Stoics knew this. Stoicism is based on the idea that we must act in accordance with and not against the grain of nature. When we do this—when we practice amor fati by embracing anything and everything that life conjures up—we begin to live truly.
How can we fully enjoy this life in all its rarity and brevity if we’re constantly attempting to manipulate every outcome? How will we ever be surprised or have serendipitous encounters if we’re locked inside a cage of calendars, schedules, and routines?
Related article: Memento Vivere: How To Live With Agency, Gratitude & Engagement
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Amor fati is a balance between receptivity and control
In Stoicism, amor fati must precede The Dichotomy of Control, because we need to wake up in the morning with receptivity. When that alarm clock goes off, you must say to yourself ‘I will cherish this day and all that it offers’. Only after we’ve done this, only after we’ve opened our minds and our hearts to receive what the day has planned for us (and not what we have planned for the day) can we then begin to implement plans and actions towards a desired outcome.
This is the beauty of Stoicism. It acknowledges that despite nature’s ultimate command over us, we still need to get shit done, or at least try. In our plans and pursuits, we must underscore every step we take with the knowledge that nature is much more powerful than even the best ideas executed well. Nature can and will get in our way.
The operative word in the phrase amor fati is love. It’s not a begrudging acceptance of fate, but a wholehearted embrace. We already know how to embrace the beauty that life offers us in its most recognizable forms, such as intimacy with those we love, the colors of the changing seasons, the night sky, or the vitality of good health. We also need to learn to love the aspects of life that we generally reject as unpleasant.
The Stoics taught that we must embrace dark times because they test us. Without darkness, we wouldn’t even need a personal, fortifying philosophy such as Stoicism.
How to practice amor fati
As I’ve already mentioned, amor fati is closely related to two other Stoic concepts: The Dichotomy of Control and The Art of Acquiescence. These two practices offer a practical approach to amor fati, so they are useful when you’re attempting to get things done in life.
The Dichotomy of Control as a practice hones our ability to see what is not within our control. To master The Dichotomy of Control we must embrace the uncontrollable variables.
When you’re traveling, you may plan to arrive at the airport on time, but the taxi you called may be late to arrive. Then, at the airport, the lines may be much longer than you had expected. An argument may erupt between the check-in personnel and the passenger just in front of you in line. None of these factors are in your control. This means that you do not get upset. Even if you miss your flight, cursing the taxi driver and the asshole in front of you in line is a useless waste of energy. The Stoic approach would be to begin immediately looking for the next flight or altering your plans in some other way.
The Art of Acquiescence, for its part, is an efficiency practice. It teaches us that the faster we come to terms with defeat, the quicker we can get back to our pursuit of victory. Any time or energy spent lamenting, blaming, or regretting is time or energy not spent on improving. We embrace obstacles so that we can break through or move around them.
Related article: Master The Art Of Acquiescence For Resilience & Perspective
How else can we practice amor fati?
The universe is not aligned with you
To really incorporate a love of fate into your life, you must first understand that the universe doesn’t care about your plans or projects. You share this planet with billions of other humans, all of whom have their own plans and projects. You live on a planet governed by weather and the natural laws of physics. And everything changes constantly. To think that the universe will somehow accommodate your will is pure ignorance.
But, this shouldn’t make you feel small. In fact, the opposite is true. We’re all interconnected. Although we all have different plans and projects, we all share the fact that we’re trying to live on this beautiful blue planet amid its natural cycles of change. We all gaze at the same stars. We all drink the same water. Your sadness, anger or despair are no different than anyone else’s. This should make you feel huge—included as part of a dynamic whole.
Related article: Interconnection & Its Connection With Stoicism
“Do not wish that all things will go well with you, but that you will go well with all things.”
– Epictetus, The Manual
Amor fati without judgment
A fundamental teaching of Stoicism is that the only thing that should be judged as good or bad is our character. To everything else, we apply a sort of indifference. Certain mindfulness meditation practices, too, teach us to discard labels of good or bad. Doing this leaves us with a neutrality that is open to embracing fate.
Our imagination is masterful at painting all sorts of dark projections of this or that future outcome. Our brains evolved to assess risk and fear unfavorable outcomes, so value judgments are not something you can simply stop. But, we can temper them with mindful awareness, and say to ourselves ‘I don’t know if this outcome will be good or bad, but I’ll embrace it nonetheless.’
This requires some humility. We need the humility to admit that our first impressions about something’s good or bad nature may be totally wrong. There are almost always unexpected consequences and side effects. To try to plan and optimize for all these known unknowns is to drive yourself nuts. So bring a little flow to your life and begin practicing amor fati by questioning your judgments of good or bad. Plus, remember this powerful Stoic lesson: even if the outcome is objectively bad, you will find a way to use it to your advantage.
Removing the self from the incident
As you may have already noticed, I’ve turned to Epictetus’ writings to help inform this article from a Stoic perspective. For this next practical approach to amor fati, I’ll borrow from him directly:
“When our neighbor’s boy breaks their window, we are likely to say, ‘Oh well, accidents happen.’ But how would you react if your own window was broken? You ought to react in the same way when it was your neighbor’s window that was broken.”
He goes on to say that we should do this even with less trivial things like the loss of a loved one. What he’s essentially saying here is that to take the blows that life lands on our chin, we must remove the attachment to the ego. The effect of this mental exercise of pretending it happened to the neighbor is just a means of removing the self from the equation. In Buddhism, too, we learn that over-attachment to the sense of self impedes much of our progress towards truly compassionate living.
Let’s face it. The hard part of practicing amor fati is not the good stuff. It’s the losses and setbacks, both real and imagined, that are hard to swallow. But, one way of opening yourself to receive rather than reject life’s vicissitudes is by attempting to remove yourself from the equation altogether.
Related article: No Self In Buddhism & Science: Tame The Ego, Start Living
Ignore the prognosticators
The mind is perfectly capable of coming up with its own worries, so you don’t need other people feeding you theirs. People love to share their projections about the future. People make a living writing about the next existential threat. The news is borderline fear mongering. There is never a shortage of opinions on the next hot investment you don’t want to miss out on.
Ignore it all as best you can. Turn off the news. Unfollow accounts on social media that don’t serve you in the present moment. Gently redirect the conversation when it turns to doomsday predictions. Ignore other people’s projections about the future because they influence you, whether you’d like to admit it or not.
The cost of buying into other people’s fears or excitement about the future is that it can hinder your ability to venture off into the unknown. It creates doubt and hesitation in place of what should be your uninhibited sense of exploration and discovery.
“When you hear predictions of the future, do not become fearful or excited. Remember that future events are beyond your control. […] Trust fate and trust yourself. Seek advice from the laws of nature, not prognosticators.”
– Epictetus, The Manual
Amor fati of the unthinkable
Most practitioners of Stoicism are familiar with the phrase memento mori, which translates to ‘remember your mortality’. In Buddhism, too, there are some highly-specific meditation protocols in which the meditator visualizes their death and decay.
A lot of people struggle with this, including myself. For my own mortality, it just rarely crosses my mind. I’m normally too busy and engaged to think about it. The Stoics taught us to contemplate the finite nature of life not as a morbid, depressive exercise, but as a gentle slap in the face—a wakeup call. The purpose of contemplating memento mori is to jolt you back into the present moment, armed with renewed appreciation for life today.
The Stoics urged us not to limit our contemplation of death to ourselves, either. They also wrote that we should contemplate the limited time we have with those we love most.
If contemplating my own eventual death was hard, contemplating that of my immediate family is excruciating, so I’m not in a good position to recommend this as a practice.
Don’t let fate catch you off guard
But, if I zoom out and examine this practice objectively—recognizing that our living-breathing connections will eventually be extinguished—it reminds me of another Stoic concept. Premeditatio malorum is the Stoic practice of considering future hardships so that we can prepare ourselves for them. If the primary purpose of memento mori practices is to foster gratitude for life here and now, then a secondary purpose may be preparing yourself for the eventual loss of your loved ones.
I really don’t know if I agree personally with this last statement or not. Would my contemplation of losing my wife and child really lessen the unthinkable damage if it were to really happen? I think not. But, I can see how this contemplative practice would motivate me to be with them more fully—to close the laptop earlier than my ambition would like so that I can spend time with them. Finally, I can see how a person who goes through life consciously avoiding thoughts of death and loss would be more stricken by shock when death eventually comes knocking.
Final thoughts
I don’t want to end this piece on death, because amor fati is about life. Amor fati is about saying yes to life. It’s about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. The part of amor fati that most requires our attention and practice is embracing fear, doubt, loss, and negative emotions. But, we must do this because life is a two-sided coin. There is no joy without pain. There is no excitement without boredom, no growth without fear.
To practice amor fati, we must begin to roll with the punches that life throws at us, because resisting against the forces of nature is a lost cause. We need to loosen our grip over and bring humility to our value judgments and ego. Ultimately, when I think of amor fati, I think of adventure. Good adventures don’t happen without the love of fate and the confidence that you’ll handle whatever that fate may be.
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