Marcus Aurelius’s father died when he was young. But then this young boy who was cursed by tragedy received a great gift. A gift that all children who have received it know to be one of the most incredible things in the world: a loving stepfather.
Ernest Renan wrote that, more than his teachers and tutors, “Marcus had a single master whom he revered above them all, and that was Antoninus.” All his adult life, Marcus strived to be a disciple of his adoptive stepfather. While he lived, Marcus saw him, Renan said, as “the most beautiful model of a perfect life.”
What were the things that Marcus learned from Antoninus? He learned the importance of compassion, hard work, persistence, altruism, self-reliance, cheerfulness; keeping an open mind and listening to anyone who could contribute; taking responsibility and blame, and putting other people at ease; yielding the floor to experts and heeding their advice; knowing when to push something or someone and when to back off; being indifferent to superficial honors and treating people as they deserved to be treated.
It’s quite a list, isn’t it? These lessons impacted Marcus so deeply, he remembered them far into adulthood and recorded them for his own reference in what would become Meditations. What made the lessons so powerful was that they were embodied in Antoninus’s actions rather than written on some tablet or scroll.
There is no better way to learn than from a role model. There is no better way to judge our progress than in constant company with the person we would most like to be one day.