Amor Fati

Marcus Aurelius says “The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.” That which is thrown in front of a fire, becomes fire.

Amor Fati is one of many stoic concepts that have profoundly changed my life over the last few months. It translates roughly to the love of fate.

I used to spend a lot of time consumed by regret and “what if” -ing and imagining how different my life had been if this had happened or if that didn’t happen.

It is one of many behaviors that contributed to my looming feeling of being “behind” or “stuck” or “unfulfilled”.

Getting better at having power over my emotions as opposed to being consumed by them is the single most impactful thing I’ve done, ever.

I am an ENFP. I’m sensitive. I’m emotional. I’m an empath. I didn’t want to lose that and I’ve learned that you can be emotional and mindful at the same time.

I have incredible people in my life that have helped me recognize that everything I have done up till now led me here. I am who I am today because of who I was before. And even if I’m not “the me I want to be” yet, I find comfort in knowing that what I do today is a step toward who I will become.

This concept helps me be very intentional about what I think, and do, and say. This coin is a reminder to welcome obstacles and pain and tragedy and let it fuel me.

If you’ve not read The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, I highly suggest it.

“Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces. - to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues it’s own aims as circumstances allow: it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What’s thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it - and makes it burn still higher.” - Marcus Aurelius