Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast where we provide one lesson every day to help you

with your most important job being a dad. These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy,

by practical wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

We can be that gift.

Marcus Aurelius's father died when he was young, but this young boy who was cursed by tragedy also

received a great gift, a gift that the children who have received it know to be one of the

most incredible things in the world. Marcus Aurelius had an incredible loving stepfather.

Ernest Renan writes that Marcus was very much a product of his childhood influences, but more than his teachers

and tutors, Marcus had a single master whom he revered above them all, Renan writes, and that was

Antoninus. All his adult life, Marcus strove to be a disciple of his adopted stepfather. While he

lived, Renan said, Marcus saw Antoninus as the most beautiful model of a perfect life.

So what were the things that Marcus learned from Antoninus?

In Marcus' own words and meditations, he learned the importance of compassion, hard work, persistence, altruism, self-reliance,

cheerfulness, and constancy to friends.

He also learned how to keep an open mind and how to

listen to anyone who can contribute, how not to play favorites, how to take responsibility and blame,

and how to put other people at ease. He learned how to yield the floor to experts and use their

advice, how to respect tradition, how to keep a good schedule, how to be moderate with the empire's

treasury, and to never get worked up. Antoninus taught Marcus how to know when to push something or someone and when to

back off. He taught him to be indifferent to superficial honors and to treat people as they deserve

to be treated. It's quite a list, isn't it? Better still that the lessons were embodied in Antoninus's actions rather than written

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