We have a sense of how we’d like today to go. We have expectations, we have needs. Not just today, but for life, and usually the expectations can be summed up as something close to, “I’d like today to go as planned.”

Alas…

We’d be better off remembering the lyrics of the famous Doris Day song,

“Que sera, sera

Whatever will be, will be

The future’s not ours to see

Que sera, sera

What will be, will be”

Because it’s true. It doesn’t matter what we think, what we want, what we’ve been told, what our data predicts: What’s going to happen is what’s going to happen. The Stoic faces each day knowing this. They also add something that doesn’t appear in the lyrics of the song. When what happens, happens, the Stoics says, “And this is exactly how I wanted it to be.”

We see a version of that line in Marcus Aurelius, in Seneca, in Epictetus: Don’t wish for things to be a certain way. Wish them to be as they are. If you can do this—today, every day—you will be happy. You will also be grateful and you will never be surprised.

Que sera, sera. Good.

P.S. This was originally sent on May 5, 2021. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.