Epictetus put it bluntly: don't wish things to be as you want, wish them to be as they are, and your life will go smoothly. So much of our exhaustion is spent insisting that the past should have gone differently. The missed chance, the wrong word, the loss, we replay them demanding a different ending they can never give. The event is fixed; only our fight with it keeps it burning. Letting it be as it is doesn't mean it didn't matter or hurt. It means stopping the second, optional suffering of refusing reality, so you have something left for the part of your life that's still open.

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