Midlife in dense urban contexts often confronts adults with chronic constraints and role obligations that challenge dignity and well-being. This study examined whether amor fati , an agentic stance of affirming acceptance toward one’s fate, is associated with flourishing, subjective happiness, and suicidal ideation beyond positive and negative affect, and how it compares with culturally familiar Chinese adversity-overcoming beliefs. Community adults in Hong Kong ( N = 263; ages 31–59 years) completed measures of amor fati , Chinese adversity beliefs, positive and negative affect, flourishing, subjective happiness, and suicidal ideation. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that both belief systems were associated with higher flourishing and subjective happiness and lower suicidal ideation after accounting for affect; however, Amor fati showed the more consistent unique associations across outcomes. Findings are consistent with the view that acceptance may support coherence and connection under constraint, with striving potentially functioning best when sequenced after acceptance. Results suggest that an acceptance-before-striving stance may be beneficial for midlife well-being in Hong Kong and similar high-constraint urban contexts. Practice implications may include cultivating consent to reality without resignation, values-guided narrative work, and culturally humble negotiation of duty and agency.
Huang et al. (Sat,) studied this question.