Weekend Story-The Shipwreck

Zeno had spent years building his life as a merchant.

Then, on a voyage carrying a valuable cargo, his ship was wrecked.

By the time he reached Athens, much of what he owned was gone.

For a while, he wandered without any real plan.

One day he stepped into a bookseller’s shop and picked up a book about Socrates.

He began reading.

A few pages in, he stopped.

“Where can I find men like this?” he asked the bookseller.

At that moment, a philosopher named Crates was walking past the shop.

The bookseller pointed towards him.

“Follow that man.”

So Zeno did.

He became Crates’ student. One teacher led to another. One question led to the next.

Years passed.

Much later, someone asked him about the shipwreck that had taken away almost everything he owned.

He said he had made a prosperous voyage when he suffered shipwreck.

The merchant who had once measured his life in cargo and trade had by then founded the school we know as Stoicism.