Amor Fati, A Secret To Living

Amor Fati is a somewhat obscure but very profound latin phrase which basically means, "love of one's fate". In order to achieve this one would have to see everything that ever happened to them in their life as good even if it caused suffering or loss. This is a concept I teach frequently as I have certainly found it to be true. I will admit it isn't the easiest pill to swallow at first, we naturally have a desire for things to stay the same, to be comfortable, to feel important and needed, and for things to continue getting better. Once I began to notice though, that some of the hardest things I had to endure in my life, produced some of the greatest advances I've made, I began to understand the core of this concept.

A simple method for adopting an attitude of Amor Fati, is to write down the worst things that happened to you in your life, then take some time to figure out what those events caused you to do. Did you change in some way as a result? Did you change any plans you had? Did it alter the plans you had made previously? Now consider those changes and how they affected where you are right now. Most often, you'll be able to see that perhaps you would have never met your spouse if that break up didn't happen, or that you would have never gotten the advance in your career if you hadn't gotten that pink slip. For me, it was even more profound. I never truly appreciated the beauty and value of each moment until I came close to mortality with the cancer I had. Having faced my mortality at a younger age enabled me to treasure the time I have in my life now more completely than anything else ever could have. As a result, I love the cancer I had and I'm thankful it happened to me.