My personal philosophy is to imitate success. Marcus was born to the purple so it makes sense to limit and find balance in the stoics before him. True stoics have this 'lack of free will' twinge to them, where bad things happening is a way of life and you have to just roll with the punches.

Let's look at another Stoic and his accomplishments, seneca. He was exiled, came back and tutored Nero (Another crazy emperor) and ended up killing himself.

Why is Stoicism held to such a high standard when it's examples are so poor. It seems to turn people into this laconic acceptance instead of having fun and doing stupid shit for the sake of it.