AMOR FATI: LOVING ONE'S FATE

Amor Fati—"Love Your Fate," which is in fact your life.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me.  At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called 'the love of your fate.' Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, 'This is what I need.'  It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge.  If you bring love to that moment—not discouragement—you will find the strength is there.  Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!  This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have chance to flow.

Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now.  You'll see that this is really true.  Nothing can happen to you that is not positive.  Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not.  The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes. 

Joseph Campbell

In every life, some things can and should be changed, while other things cannot or should not be changed.  It's also true that, with every passing year, the second category grows larger, while the first grows smaller.  Increasingly, therefore, we must choose the way we respond to things that cannot or should not be changed—things that may be classified as our "fate."  Typically, we resist our fate, all to no good end, but Nietzsche and Campbell remind us that we always have a better alternative.  We can not only accept our fate, but actually come to love it—to embrace it without judgment, to regard it as foundational to the unfolding of our unique lives.  We can become "yes-sayers," as Nietzsche said, people who say yes to everything in life that cannot be changed for the better.  It's a great approach, I think, to what scientist and writer Jon Kabat-Zinn has called "full catastrophe living."

THE THING IS

Ellen Bass

                                         To love life, to love it even

                                         when you have no stomach for it

                                         and everything you've held dear

                                         crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

                                         your throat filled with the silt of it.

                                         When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

                                         thickening the air, heavy as water

                                         more fit for gills than lungs:

                                         when grief weights you like your own flesh

                                         only more of it, an obesity of grief, 

                                         you think, How can a body withstand this?

                                         Then you hold life like a face, 
                                         between your palms, a plain face,

                                         no charming smile, no violet eyes,

                                         and you say, yes, I will take you

                                         I will love you, again.

AMOR FATI

LOVE YOUR FATE