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We feel the haunting power of fate every day of our lives. Our umbrella breaks a few minutes before the rain starts, the elevator door closes in our faces, we get stuck in traffic when we should be fast sometime, our plane flight is canceled. It is in our nature to feel upset and suffer when faced with such things.

However, for Stoic philosophers, consuming your energies through negative reactions does nothing to help you solve your problems or find peace with yourself. Of course, much of what happens in life is out of our control.

But we can control how we react to the problems and tragedies that fate throws our way. Seneca, a Stoic philosopher and Roman statesman of the 1st century, said that one of the best ways to react to problems is to laugh at them: “We should take things easy, because it is more humane to laugh at life.” than to mourn for it… Laughter gives it a fair prospect of hope, while mourning for things which cannot be hoped to be corrected is worthless.”

To illustrate his point, imagine yourself having a terrible day at work. You try your best, but nothing seems to go in your favor. You feel more tired and frustrated with each passing hour, and you can’t wait for the work day to be over. Then, as you’re walking home in a rage, a bird randomly flies by and drops a glass on your head.

Freeze at first. It is something so unexpected that at first you are shocked. But then, you start laughing in disbelief. And you can’t help but burst into a free laughter that expresses surrender to what happened: “Laughter expresses our tenderest feelings, and shows that nothing is great, serious or even miserable in all the trappings of our existence “.

Laughter – at yourself or the situation you find yourself in – shows a sudden inner understanding. You finally realize, in every cell of your body, that nothing could have prevented what happened from happening. And yet, you’re still fine. And your soulful laughter frees you from a tension that has been slowly building throughout the day: your conflict with fate and its acceptance.

As the Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankel says in the book “Man’s Search for the Meaning of Life”: “Seeing things in the frame of humor is a kind of manipulation that is learned by mastering the art of living.”

“What you want is so great, supreme and almost divine, so it should not be abandoned” – begins Seneca’s essay entitled “On peace of mind”. He notes that finding inner peace is a natural human goal, and one that spans histories, cultures, and social classes.

Seneca said that very few people are on the right path to lasting peace and happiness. Meanwhile, most people are busy pursuing empty pleasures, worrying about their turbulent desires or their possessions. Why?

One reason is the failure to embrace a central tenet of the Stoic school of philosophy: the awareness that much of life is governed by fate and probabilities. The Stoics believed that we should learn to accept and embrace this fact, rather than trying to fight what cannot be changed.

Everyone, regardless of their wealth, reputation or skills, is at the mercy of fate. And this uncertainty about life and death, good fortune and misfortune, is at the heart of what it is to be human. And yet, most people suffer when things don’t go their way.

They are frustrated and angry, as they cannot accept the power of chance, something over which they clearly have no control. And fighting against the unchangeable—like the past, a bad disease, or other people’s decisions—is not only futile, but exhausting.

This argument comes from the depth of Seneca’s personal experience. As a young lawyer preparing for public life in Rome, his life plan was disrupted for a decade by an illness. Later, after amassing wealth and influence in the empire, he fell victim to the temptations of power: He was exiled twice by his student, the infamous Roman emperor Nero, who persecuted him and finally ordered him to kill himself.

Despite his misfortune, Seneca seemed to have found plenty of room to maneuver in the prevailing framework of fate. He was a sharp philosopher, satisfied with life, but also a very active public figure in politics. He embraced the uncertainty of his life, and found peace deep within himself.

To be happy, he said, we must focus only on what is in our power: how we perceive the world and how we choose to act. So in the face of adversity, we must learn how to laugh.

What Seneca describes in the book “On Tranquility of Mind” is an undivided love over one’s life, both in fortune and misfortune, to the extent that even something tragic cannot threaten it. This is the most stoic interpretation of “Amor fati,” or loving your destiny, a term attributed to the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote extensively on the value of laughter.

Although he disliked Seneca and most of the other Stoics for their gloomy and resigned outlook on life, both seem to agree on the power of laughter to cope with life’s difficulties. In his masterpiece, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche alludes to the great power of the Devil in causing difficulties in people’s lives.

And through laughter, and not hatred, the Devil’s gravity in our lives can disappear: “Man does not kill out of anger, but out of laughter. So let’s kill the spirit of his gravity!”. The same goes for freedom of choice in one’s life. Nietzsche discusses the great goal of living wholeheartedly and courageously.

According to him, people should try to channel their natural power to take risks and efforts because failing is better than not trying. And failures should not prevent people from trying again, and with the same joy to live it.

Nietzsche writes: “O you higher people, haven’t you all failed? Be happy no matter what! Learn to laugh at yourself as you should laugh!”. Nietzsche understood, as Seneca did earlier, that if you are overwhelmed by what you cannot change, then you will fail to act on the things you can change, such as living the life you want.

Fate has a tight grip on everyone, and life isn’t always fair or easy, but living it can still be wonderful. Instead of feeling defeated by adversity, you can welcome it with confidence, smile and keep striving for better after it. Fate and failure only hurt those who cannot come to terms with them.