Marcus Aurelius trained himself to love his fate, not in a forced, cheerful way, but as an honest acceptance of what is. Wishing reality were different is exhausting and changes nothing. The rain came; the plan fell through; the answer was no. You can spend the day arguing with it, or you can ask the better question: given that this is true, what now? Acceptance isn't approval. You don't have to like what happened. You only have to stop pretending it didn't, so your hands are free to do something useful with it. The thing in your way often becomes the way forward.

Inspired by the old idea of amor fati. Written by Ugo Charles.