After he lost everything in a shipwreck, Zeno washed up in Athens and walked into a bookstore where the bookseller happened to be reading dialogues from Socrates. Thus introduced to philosophy, he would go on to become one of the most well-known and well-respected thinkers of his time, advising princes and kings and a generation of Greeks. That school, founded on the stoa poikile, would become Stoicism, a philosophy which endures to this day.
On the surface, Zeno's story is extraordinary. Born as an upper-class, wealthy merchant, he was forced to start over and build himself up from scratch, becoming a truly self-made man.
But this is misleading, as most success narratives are. Because Zeno would not have become Zeno without meeting Crates—a teacher nicknamed "The Door Opener" for what he did for so many students.
Indeed, there is no great man or woman whose story doesn't involve being helped, guided, and inspired by other great men and women. There would be no Epictetus, who studied under Musonius Rufus as he rose up from slavery. There would be no Seneca without Attalus, no Chrysippus without Cleanthes, and no Cleanthes without Zeno. Why do you think Marcus Aurelius opens Meditations with a list of the seventeen influential figures who taught him, nurtured him, inspired him, helped him?
When we talked to Arnold Schwarzenegger on an episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, he talked about this very idea (in fact, he references how inspired he was by Meditations in the final chapter of his fantastic book, Be Useful). On the surface, he seems like the ultimate example of that idea of the "self-made man." Born and raised in a small village in Austria, seemingly on his own sheer effort and determination, Arnold achieved extraordinary success in bodybuilding, acting, business, and politics. But, he told us, he didn't do it on his own. "I have been a creation of hundreds of people," he said. "Thousands of people. It's unbelievable the amount of people that helped me and pushed me," he said.
We are all in debt, as we talked about not too long ago. We are all the sum of the "debts and lessons"—as Book 1 of Meditations is titled—we accumulate from the countless people who shape our lives. We are all the products of our influences, our environments, our family and friends. Success is a collaborative effort. The myth of the self-made man is just that, a myth. There has never been such a thing. And there never will be.
Marcus opensMeditationsby naming the people who helped form him—the "debts and lessons" without which he would not be the great ruler he had become. Want to explore Marcus's full list of debts and lessons for yourself? Our beautiful leatherbound edition of Meditationsis the perfect way to keep his timeless wisdom close at hand. A book meant to be read, reread, and passed down—just as Marcus's teachers passed their wisdom down to him. Get your copy here.
You can find Meditations and the rest of our premium leatherbound editions like The Daily Stoic and The Daily Dad in The Daily Stoic Gift Guide.
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