It’s Valentine’s Day and every newsletter I’ve received has a headline involving love. Why buck the trend? But the love I want to write about today is not so-called romantic love, but rather love of reality, just as you find it.

The Stoics called this Amor Fati, loving your Fate. I think of it as a full-bodied embrace of just exactly where Fate has brought you. Let me unpack that.

Let’s start with the notion of “just exactly where Fate has brought you”. This idea runs counter to our perception that we are the ones who have brought ourselves to exactly where we are. Our current reality is the product of our own choices and decisions. And yes, it certainly appears to be so.

Amor Fati suggests that a force was also at work, behind the scenes. Even as you were making your decisions and taking your actions, there was force at work that either worked alongside you, helped you along, or did the very opposite, and put roadblocks in your way. Things turn out the way they do because two things were happening: you were making choices, and Fate was helping or hindering.

The idea is not to stop making choices – it’s just to realize that Fate may have other plans. Consider the old Yiddish adage, “Man plans, and God laughs”. There’s something humbling about recognizing that the whole universe is not here just to meet our wants and needs.

Now about the “full-bodied embrace”. Why embrace? Because the act of loving what is goes beyond just accepting what is. It goes beyond surrendering to it. It means welcoming it with an embrace as one would a beloved friend. This is your life! You may not like parts of it, but this is it. And to embrace it in a full-bodied way means to observe and recognize even your own bristling at certain aspects of it.

Imagine personifying your life as a beloved friend and saying to that friend, “you’re not perfect, but I love you just the way you are, now come here and let’s hug!”

Happy Valentine’s Day!