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Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom and temperance.

And here on the weekend we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare, we think deeply about the challenging issues of our time.

And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school when we have the time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals and to prepare for what the future will bring.

What if you were trafficked into a cult over shot nine times or fell in love with a vampire or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week later, paralyzed. What would you do?

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From a young man that dunes his entire future with one choice to a woman who survived a notorious serial killer, you'll hear their first person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances.

Each episode is an exploration of the human spirit and personal discovery. These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you this is actually happening.

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Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another weekend episode, the Daily Stoic. Look, I don't need to tell you guys who Marcus really is.

So when we titled this online, we call it in a sort of who is Marcus, but you know, so really a better way to think about today's episode is why does Marcus really matter what was the life of this man.

That's what I tried to do in lives of the Stoics. That's what I try to do in my stories about Marcus and in all the Stoics. I try to put sort of flesh on the bones.

I try to look at their lives because again, as we've said so many times, it's not just what one says, but it's how one lives. And I think there's so much to learn from Marcus to realize that one of the ancient historians was saying that, you know, Marcus was probably the wisest rulers to ever live one of the most fundamentally decent.

The rulers to ever live one of the least corruptible leaders to ever live one of the most qualified rulers to ever live. And yet he did not meet with the luck or the good fortune that one would hope, right.

Marcus's reign was beset by adversity, the Antonine plague wars at the border of two difficult children in the case of commoners.

But what we see in Marcus is an ability to persevere an ability to even use this difficulty as a chance to grow. That's what the idea of the obstacle is the way is how impressive would it be if Marcus wrote this great idea of the impediment to action advances action, it stands in the way he comes away.

But then his life wasn't an example of that. I think that would be one one would dare say disqualifying right. And so I think in today's episode when I wanted to give you a glimpse of his who Marcus was how he lived what made him great what we ought to remember by just a few as Plutarch talks about sometimes it's a scene, it's a moment, it's a quote that gives us a greater glimpse into the whole of the person.

And that's what today's episode is about if you want more in Marcus we have a whole chapter about him in the lives of the Stoics book.

And of course I write about him in pretty much all my books and we talk about him a lot here. But this today is why does Marcus matter what can you teach us the answer is a whole hell of a lot.

How did it happen how did this boy of pedestrian ancestry hand picked and groomed to become king it remains a mystery the boys name was Marcus are really us and for all the incredible expectations and hope placed upon him he managed to paraphrase his great admirer Matthew Arnold to prove himself worthy of it.

And in April 26th 121 AD Marcus was raised by both his grandfather's who doated on him by the time he was 10 or 11 he'd already taken to philosophy dressing like one and following the sober and restrained habits even sleeping on the ground to toughen himself up.

And already developed a reputation for honesty the emperor Hadrian who would have known young Marcus through his early academic accomplishments sends his potential and kept a keen eye on him his nickname for Marcus whom he liked to go hunting with was verismus a play on his name veris the truest one.

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