Love What Is

It’s hard to be thankful for the obstacles in our lives. The unplanned things we have to go through.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche popularized the Latin phrase, Amor Fati – a love of fate. In Why I Am So Clever he wrote, "My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary…but love it."

Life isn’t going to go as planned. Just because we can imagine something doesn’t mean we’re entitled to it.

We’ve all been passed over for something we felt like we deserved. Cut from a sports team. Passed over for a promotion. Not gotten a job offer after a great interview.

Our minds tend to race into the future. Imagining a future version of ourselves. The new desk, the pleasure of telling our friends and family about the new success.

Our brains aren’t great at deciphering between reality and imagination.

So we’re getting the pleasure of an accomplishment without having accomplished it. We feel like it’s already happened because we’ve imagined it. We’ve talked about it. Told our friends about it. We’re picking out the new suit for the first day and wondering how big our office will be.

Then the call comes. We didn’t get it. Now it’s more than just disappointment. Now we’ve been wronged.

We’re knocked on our ass because reality has run head on into what we were desiring. What we were imagining.

This is the pivotal moment. This is where we get to choose how we respond. Where we can choose to focus on what we can control or be miserable about what we can’t.

Our thoughts, our desires and our feelings have no impact on reality. We can’t desire our way into success.

We all know the people defining themselves based on reality colliding with their desires. The high school sports star who’s on their way until a torn ACL or freak injury. The desire of a sports career colliding with the reality of a bum knee.

But that person never moves on. That becomes the story instead of just a part of it.

The opposite of this is accept our fate. To love it. To let it be oxygen to the fire. It’s not how we drew it up, but we accept it and keep going. We put our focus and our energy into what we can control.

Marcus Aurelius would remind himself, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

We always get to choose how we respond to what happens to us. We can get lost in what could have been or we can choose to love what happens to us. No matter what. To refuse to be a victim.