Amor Fati💙

At age sixty-seven, soon to be famous, American inventor and businessman Thomas Edison returned home early one evening after a long day’s work in his laboratory.

Shortly after finishing dinner, a man came rushing into his house.

His face painted an image of horror and bewilderment: A fire had broken out at Edison’s research center and production campus.

Soon, the whole town was flooded with fire engines from eight nearby towns, all with the sole purpose of extinguishing the fire.

Though their combined efforts were futile, the fire couldn’t be contained.

Fueled by strange chemicals in the various buildings involved in the fire, the flame shot up to seven stories high, threatening to destroy the empire Edison had spent most of his life building.

Among the faces of horror and amazement, Edison was the one that stood out the most. Not from the horror, but rather, elation…?

Showing a child-like excitement, he grabbed his son by the arm and told him:

“Go get your mother and all of her friends. They’ll never see a fire like this again.”

What?!?!? said his son.

“Don’t worry” Edison told him calmly. “It’s all right. We just got rid of a lot of rubbish.”

Thomas Edison is the personification of what the stoics called: Amor fati.

The love of fate.

Edison knew there was nothing else he could do.

Of course he could get upset, scream at the sky, curse all he could, cry his eyes out.

But what good could that bring?

He knew the only thing left to do was: nothing.

Loving whatever happens to us and facing it with unfailing cheerfulness.

As he told the reporter the very next day:

“I’ve been through a lot of things like this. It prevents a man from being afflicted with ennui.”

Despite losing aproximately $ 1 million dolars (more than $ 23 millions in today’s dollars), Edison would marshal energy to make nearly $ 10 million dollars in revenue that year ($ 200-plus millions today).

Amor fati is not the lack of action, but rather the acceptance that there’s things outside our control. and the only thing left to do is acceptance, or what the Stoics called the Art of Acquiescence.

C’est la vie.

There will always be things outside our control, things that are immune to action.

So when facing our worst moments, let’s picture Edison. Always calm, always in control.

We don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we feel about it. And why on earth would you choose to feel anything but good? - Ryan Holiday

And yes, I understand, it´s somewhat unnatural to feel gratitude for things we never wished to happen nor are they beneficial in any way. But, after all we´ve been through and learned, we know that opportunities lie within adversity, so theres little reason to delay this feelings.

As the Stoics used to say:

Cheerfulness in all situations. Especially the bad ones.