Amor Fati is a latin phrase meaning Love of Fate. Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Friedrich Nietzsche were all big fans of it. It means to not just accept both the beauty and the pain of your life, but to embrace it—to realize that both good and bad are what makes your life meaningful and unique.
Take a step back and look at anger. You know that time last week when you were in a huge hurry, and the guy in front of you at the stop light just sat there like a dummy when the light turned green? If you’d wanted him to sit there like a flipping dufus, you wouldn’t have been angry. It’s only because the world (and that guy) didn’t do what you wanted/expected that you got angry. Getting angry didn’t actually help. Ultimately, you made yourself angry.
Amor Fati is like a socket wrench for adjusting your attitude.
Wabi-Sabi is a traditional Japanese worldview, but it’s very similar in spirit to Amor Fati. It’s about finding beauty in things that are transient, imperfect, or incomplete.
Like Amor Fati, Wabi-Sabi helps you take control of your own emotions by changing what you look for and how you respond to the world. You find the beauty in what is. You find it because you’re looking for it, and because you realize that perfection is artificial, and ultimately impossible.
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