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Amor Fati: The Stoic Practice Of Loving Your Fate · The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll start with the literal translation of the phrase amorfati.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It simply means love of fate or love your fate.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea is that when we get into spiritual practice, very quickly on in our journey, we learn that a big part of the path is acceptance.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Mindfulness is kind of acceptance.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: To be mindful of something is to be accepting of it.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: When you're mindful, you don't judge, you don't criticize, you don't create an opinion about it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: You just watch it, you observe it.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you're mindful of your emotions, you sit with your emotions, you let your emotions flow through your body.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you're mindful of your thoughts, you see them passing like clouds in the sky.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So acceptance is a big part of Buddhism and the spiritual path.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And acceptance is actually a very big part of having good mental health.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not a very accepting person, then you're not tolerant.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to get frustrated a lot because reality doesn't meet your expectations, you don't accept it, you get angry, you get frustrated.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So there's definitely a link between the level that you can bring acceptance to life and the level at which you can feel tranquil and at ease and calm.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: But love of fate goes beyond just acceptance.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Love of fate is about rather than just accepting or enduring what happens to you, it advocates embracing every experience as not just something to put up with, but to love, to cherish, to experience as valuable and necessary.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: The person who popularized the idea was the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and he said, My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's that sentence alone means we should probably pay attention.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the greatest thinkers of all time, is saying very clearly that the formula for greatness is amorfati.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: He then goes on.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Amor fati means that one wants nothing to be different.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not forward, not backward, not in all eternity.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not merely be what is necessary, but to love it.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: He said that in the gay science.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have a pleasurable experience.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we love our lives, we love our experience, we love our fate.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Life is good.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: But when things trigger unpleasant emotions, sadness, anger, frustration, grief, it's hard to say, I'm very grateful for this experience.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because I guess we unconsciously adapt this frame of mind that's like gratitude when we're happy and resistance when we're unhappy.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't actually really think like this because if I asked you to look back over your life and think about difficult experiences you've had, would you change any of those?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Has every bad experience you've had made your life worse in a permanent sense?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or when you look back, do you see that the time that you had the end of that relationship helped you out in some way?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or when you didn't get that job, you then went on to get a job that you did like even more?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We've all had experiences like this.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: When things don't go well, in the moment we're not happy about it, but then later on we say, Oh, that was such a good life lesson.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that happened.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nietzsche is saying, why do we need to wait months and years?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can't we just trust that whatever is happening will probably lead to something good and worthwhile?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And not even just probably, we can choose to make it worthwhile.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: We can actively look for the lesson.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: We can actively look for the benefit of it.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the idea of Amofati is not about blind posity.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: You don't go through life going, oh, everything's great, you know, there's no such thing as negative emotions.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not blind positivity, it's about shifting focus from uncontrollable externals to circumstances where you can control your response.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So something, let's just take an example, you break down in traffic.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's fine to in the moment be a bit flustered, be a bit panicked, be a bit anxious, be a bit annoyed in the moment.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can't control your car breaking down.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But then you can adopt the phrase of amorfatty.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: How can I love this?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: What can I practice?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can cultivate virtues like patience.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is the training ground for me to be more resilient.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: What would someone very strong and wise do in this situation?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can use this difficult life situation to practice acting more like that.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then an hour later, you go, I'm actually glad that happened because it was hard and I learned some important life lessons there that I can then practice with my family when I go home to them.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: While Nietzsche popularized the phrase amorfati, it traces back to ancient Stoicism with philosophers like Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the big three.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Most of what we know about Stoicism comes from these three philosophers.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Not that there weren't many others, but the texts didn't survive.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we have a lot of work from Marcus Aurelius, a lot from Seneca, and some from Epictetus.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at each of these now and have a quick biography of them and see how they thought of Amorfati.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: So Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor and he viewed fate as part of a harmonious cosmic order.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he wrote in his classic self-improvement book, Meditations, even though it was meant for his eyes only, as a sort of personal development journal.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: End quote.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine that.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: You really this frame, whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you take that on as a core belief, you become unbreakable.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You fully accept it and trust that there's a cosmic order to life, that this is happening for a reason.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll find that there's a lot of phrases in self-improvement, and also just when we try to cheer each other up, that sound now cliche, but a lot of them originated from stoicism.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Things like everything happens for a reason, right?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's said all the time.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, don't be upset about that, everything happens for a reason.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: But that is actually amorphy.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: The danger is when we hear that, we don't take it seriously.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: We go, okay, yeah, I get it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it's important that we really think deeply about these phrases.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Another one in Stoicism would be just focus on what's within your control.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: You have a bad day, you're stressed out, someone says to you, don't worry, just focus on about what's in your control.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we go, okay, that's not really helpful, but that's the reason it's not helpful is because that's just the cliche, the surface level phrase.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if you go deep into that, you will see that there's actually a lot of wisdom in that.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So Marc Sorelius urged acceptance and appreciation of life's events, and he saw adversity as an opportunity for growth.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Epictetus was known for transforming suffering into strength.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: He was born a slave, and he was physically crippled, some say by his master, and he had a broken leg and lived with a limp.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he said in the Encaridian, his famous Stoic Handbook, do not seek for things to happen the way you want, rather wish that what happens happens the way it happens, then you will be happy.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really short sentence that if we take that on will literally make us happier in life.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say it again because it's very important.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do not seek for things to happen the way you want.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Rather wish that what happens the way it happens, then you will be happy.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's okay to have a preference.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd rather be fit than unfit.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'd rather earn money rather than have no money.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'd rather have friends than no friends.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to have these preferences in life, but not to crave them and desire them in a sort of irrational, blinded sense.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there needs to be this part of us that is, yes, we have preferences in life, but there's a part of us that also chooses what is, chooses the life that we have, and trusts the cosmic order of things.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you can actually play around with this.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: As you're going about in your life, just play a game where you start practicing really wanting what you currently have as if it was something you put as a goal.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe one of your goals is like, I what are classical?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give up smoking, I want to lose weight, whatever it is.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we focus on these goals, we get excited about it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But play a game where you think of yourself as a lot worse off than you currently are, and then you have the goal to be the person you are now, and then start craving that goal, start wanting that goal, and then you realize you're already there.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's practicing, wanting things to happen the way they are happening.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, we have Seneca, and Seneca was very good at finding virtue in adversity, and he emphasized character building.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So each of these stoic philosophers had a different kind of stance.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: We have Marcus Aurelius, who attempted to embrace the cosmic order.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have Epictetus who liked to look at suffering and how we can transform that into strength.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Seneca was looking at how can we build our character, our personality through hardships.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: He said the bravest sight in the world is to see a great person struggling against adversity.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever happens to you in life, in some sense, is a test.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Seneca saw that as a test to see what's inside you.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I read a book a while ago on storytelling.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the ideas in the book was that you need to put your characters under pressure because if there's no pressure, you don't see what people are made of.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a like a very compassionate on the outside person walking down the street, what you need to do with that individual then is put them in a situation where they have an opportunity to save lives and to risk their own life in doing that.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you'll see how compassionate they are.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to act a certain way when there's no pressure.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to act good when there's no temptation to do wrong.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to act brave when there's nobody trying to make you afraid.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can find virtue in adversity.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just would have liked to refined some of my responses.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Current situation feels like the biggest challenge to date, though.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: How do we apply it to situations of such deep heaviness?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: So somehow learning to embrace determinism.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: The ancient Stoics would say that the past is already part of fate, you can't change it, it's outside of your control.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: The present is already the present, you can't change that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: The future is up to us insofar as we can control our responses, our opinions, our judgments, our actions.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: We can't control the external world.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's they have like a half a deterministic view.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: They still hold this idea of free will, but only the internal type.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: They also acknowledge that you can't control other people or the world or the environment, so you just focus on what you can control.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to practice amorfati in a very difficult situation, and it's tricky because the way that we practice amorfati ideally is in lower stakes situation, like as a daily practice, then we build up to it.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people start meditating when life goes horribly wrong, but the best time to start meditating for that individual would have been a year ago, because then they have the baseline practice.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to meditate properly when everything's chaotic.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: However, stoicism works extremely well, even if you're new to it and things are really tough.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: What I would start doing is a practice called negative visualization.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, whatever is going on in your life, however challenging it is, what one thing I like to do is just think of how it could still be even worse.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a quote that I like.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever something bad happens, think of what catastrophe you've also avoided.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: So Nietzsche revitalized Amorfati from the Stoics in the 19th century, linking it to the concept of what he called eternal recurrence, this idea of living the same life repeatedly.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question as well to meditate on.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you were to have lived the same life that you've lived so far for eternity over and over and over again, would that life feel like a hell to you or a heaven?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And would you be able to apply the lens of Amor Fatih to that repeating?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Would you be able to choose to love your faith if it was replaying over and over again?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Nietzsche passionately declared in his book The Gay Science, quote, I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: The key phrase is there is makes things beautiful.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us go through life worshipping the external world in this way that takes away our own agency.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: We forget that we are projecting, we forget that we are applying a lens always to externals.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that a piece of art is not necessarily objectively beautiful or not.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like a chimpanzee or an alien species or a different human might see a piece of art that you love and say that it's horrible and disgusting, right?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're applying a different lens to it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: But life itself is like that.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of wanting things to be beautiful around you, why not embrace amorfati and make things beautiful by altering the lens and the way that you see life?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Here are some real-world examples of figures throughout history embracing amalfati.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Epictetus, who we've already mentioned, was a slave who became a very influential philosopher and teacher to the wealthy and often like the children of very high-status politicians in ancient Rome.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And think of it, from a slave with very limited education to then the teacher of the highest status individuals in the land by practicing stoicism and embracing his fate is quite an achievement.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, which I can't imagine going to prison for one year, but to be in prison for 27 years and then to come out of prison and then to lead South Africa is yeah, it's pretty crazy.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: He accepted his fate and he came out of prison with wisdom.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at how we actually practice Amar Fati in daily life.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there are three steps to this.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to take notes or just practice them now as we go through them.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: So number one is to reframe adversities as opportunities.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So any setback that comes your way, any obstacle, you can practice it today or tomorrow or this week.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Look for the opportunity.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Ask how can I turn this into something valuable?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: What is the lesson here?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: One game that I like to play with my perspective is whenever something negative happens, I say, like the sentence stamp, this is good because I leave a gap.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what happens, just to get the mind thinking.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you maybe you twist your ankle and you love to run.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is good because now I can read those books that I've been putting off, or now I can take up an interest in rehab and mobility in yoga, which I've been putting off.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: For example, my children are really stressing me out and testing my patience.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is good because now I'm very motivated to become a better parent and research how to become a better parent and to practice these tools in difficult situations.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we can actually do that right now and then just write this is good because step two is to apply the stoic dichotomy of control.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the dichotomy of control was a theme in Stoicism, but it was really fleshed out by Epictetus, and it's this idea that life is divided or experience is divided into two categories: things that are up to us and things that are not up to us.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have a garden, a long garden, quite narrow, but it's long, and I have a neighbor, a bunch of neighbors with also long, narrow gardens.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think to myself, if my neighbor had a plant in that garden, in their garden that was very unattractive, and they didn't care for it, and their garden became messy, that is not up to me the change.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell them, I can express by thoughts, but it's not my garden to change.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: So instead, what should I be doing?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I should be focusing on my garden.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's my garden.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can cut the grass and plant nice flowers.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you think of this analogy in terms of the dichotomy of control, Epictetus would say that your mind is your garden, and anything outside of you is not your garden.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can't control other people.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can't control to a large extent what your body does.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Any of us could get hit by something when we step outside, or we could become ill because there's a strange genetic variant that we didn't know we had.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Even the most deepest, beautiful, romantic relationships can end at any moment.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of the agreement.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know that every day you're with someone, they could leave.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So could you.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a choice.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: You don't control that.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, you control your thoughts, your actions, your opinions.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so whatever happens to you, you look for the lesson, step one, and step two is you ask what is within my control and what is not within my control.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And try to switch the perspective to thinking only about what is up to you.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: How can I think about this?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: How can I create a judgment around this that is useful to me?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to step three, this is where we practice gratitude.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: So acknowledge that even difficult events can improve our character and help us grow.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: So again, Amul Fati doesn't deny life's struggles, it transforms how you perceive them.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're not saying that issues don't exist, we're saying that we're going to use these issues to improve our character and our life.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you start practicing these three steps, reframe adversities as opportunities, apply the stoic dichotomy of control, and have gratitude for every moment.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the benefits that you can expect?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: You will have better mental and emotional resilience.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: By reframing adversity positively, you can reduce your anxiety, reduce your depression.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Stoics assert that embracing fate cultivates inner peace and strength.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: How could a person be truly anxious and depressed if they love whatever happens to them?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's the ultimate antidote to that.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that it's easy to do, but the fact that there is a pathway to this and that you can improve on the scale to increase your ammo fati is pretty inspiring and hopeful.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Some individuals would criticize Amofati and say that it might foster some passivity or complacency, especially in hardship or injustice.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think some of these comments have been coming up.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there are really bad instances of suffering in the world and evil.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I want to have amorfati over that?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Surely I should stand up and be really annoyed and fight it.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the Stoics would say that the amorfati approach emphasizes active acceptance rather than passive resignation.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you can choose your response, and then that response can lead to action and lead to you improving your character.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if something really troubling is going on in the world, you can say, Well, I still love my experience, I still love what is happening within my reality right now, and I'm noticing that I'm getting feelings of wanting to take action and change this.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: How can I do that?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's an active type of acceptance.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because the alternative is that life is still forcing you to feel happy or forcing you to feel sad.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: So let's do a quick recap.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Amor Fati translates as love of fate.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's about acceptance and appreciation of every type of event in life.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nietzsche popularized the term, but the roots originate with the ancient Stoics, Marx Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the three ways you practice Amofati is to reframe adversity into opportunity, to focus on what you can control, and to find moments of gratitude in life.