| There would be no Plato without Socrates. There would be no Aristotle without Plato. There would be no Alexander without Aristotle. There would be no Marcus Aurelius without Rusticus or Epictetus or Antoninus. There would be no Zeno without Crates…and thus, there would be no Stoicism without Crates either. Do you know what Crates—the Cynic philosopher who Zeno studied under—was nicknamed in ancient Athens? He was known as the Door Opener. That's what great teachers do, don't they? They open doors. They invite you in. They help you see possibilities you didn't know existed. Bad teachers? They do the opposite. They close doors. They beat the curiosity out of you. They make you think you're bad at math, or at reading, or at thinking. There is a great teacher out there for all of us. But it's your job to look for them. They say that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. That can be true . . . but we also can't just sit around waiting for a miracle. We must seek out teachers and schools that are right for us. Zeno went looking for Crates, after all. Marcus Aurelius sought out the great minds of his time—finding it in Rusticus and Fronto and still, as an old man, Marcus was going to attend the lectures of Sextus the philosopher. And he learned as much from Epictetus—whom he never met—as he did from any of his actual instructors. (Epictetus himself, even as a slave, found his way to Musonius Rufus' lectures.) And when you do find the right teacher? Understand this: the process won't be fast. A samurai named Banzo once asked his master how long it would take to become a great swordsman. Ten years, he was told. "What if I work extra hard?" Banzo asked. "Thirty years," the master replied. The more you rush, the slower you go. Education takes time. It takes work. It takes patience. It takes the right teachers, living and dead. But the rewards are worth it. And the sooner you start looking for those "door openers," the better. The Stoics believed that wisdom is something we work toward—not something we're born with or given. "No man was ever wise by chance," as Seneca put it. Ryan Holiday's latest book Wisdom Takes Work, the fourth and final entry in the Stoic Virtues Series, is about how to do that work and reap its rewards. It's filled with the hard-won insights of some of history's wisest people, and how we can follow in their footsteps. If you're ready to start—or to deepen your commitment to—that work, the book is available for preorder now! We have a limited number of signed, numbered first-editions you can grab here. We also have some special preorder bonuses for you, like: Learn more about these bonuses and preorder the book today at dailystoic.com/wisdom! *** | 
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