Embracing the uncertainty.

 Amor Fati; learning to love and accept everything that happens.

Amor Fati is a stoic philosophical concept and with passing years it makes much more sense to me. In fact stoic philosophy precisely is to embrace every situation even if we are not happy with it, as if we wanted it. Stoics believe we have been presented with situations and experiences to help us evolve.

I always believed in planning, performing and executing as planned to perfection.  we all know nothing works as planned always! This inevitably made me feel disappointed and left with self doubt. It made me eventually anxious as I always worried about the end result.

As years passed, I had experiences which made me realise the importance of embracing uncertainty. Life is dynamic and every day is different with new experiences. Life keeps happening to all of us and power lies in courageously accepting each moment and embracing them. I have understood whether we like or dislike, we cannot change a lot of life situations and so unnecessarily fretting over them is a waste of precious energy. I still find it hard to let go of controlling the situations as I am hardwired to believe that I have the power to control most of the situations. Taking a step back helped me to relax more and to perform with less anxiety and eventually that led to better outcomes. 

Long ago, I read about the definition of success which stayed in my mind as it was so different from my understanding of success. It said success is using one’s own gifts and capabilities in whatever field or life situations to their fullest and that ultimately gives us satisfaction. It doesn’t have anything to do with the rat race with our peers or with fitting into societal norms of certain standards of success like money, power and fame.

 We are unique and tailor made by the creator and our joy and gifts are unique to us and it is our responsibility to discover those gifts, express them and create something which gives meaning to our existence. I always used to believe success or achievement is extraordinary stuff but over the years, I have realised success is in very ordinary things. Living every day with joy, kindness and humility and accepting each day as it presents to us by embracing the uncertainty is the ultimate success.