For each action, consider what leads up to it and what follows it,
and approach it in the light of that. Otherwise you will come to it
enthusiastically at first, since you have not borne in mind any of
what will happen next, but later when difficulties turn up you will
give up disgracefully. You want to win an Olympic victory? I do
too, by the gods, since that is a fine thing. But consider what
leads up to it and what follows it, and undertake the action in the
light of that. You must be disciplined, keep a strict diet, stay
away from cakes, train according to strict routine at a fixed time
in heat and in cold, not drink cold water, not drink wine when you
feel like it, and in general you must have turned yourself over to
your trainer as to a doctor, and then in the contest “dig in,”
sometimes dislocate your hand, twist your ankle, swallow a lot of
sand, sometimes be whipped, and, after all that, lose. Think about
that and then undertake training, if you want to. Otherwise you
will be behaving the way children do, who play wrestlers one time,
gladiators another time, blow trumpets another time, then act a
play. In this way you too are now an athlete, now a gladiator, then
an orator, then a philosopher, yet you are nothing wholeheartedly,
but like a monkey you mimic each sight that you see, and one thing
after another is to your taste, since you do not undertake a thing
after considering it from every side, but only randomly and
half-heartedly.

In the same way when some people watch a philosopher and hear one
speaking like Euphrates (though after all who can speak like him?),
they want to be philosophers themselves. Just you consider, as a
human being, what sort of thing it is; then inspect your own nature
and whether you can bear it. You want to do the pentathlon, or to
wrestle? Look at your arms, your thighs, inspect your loins.
Different people are naturally suited for different things. Do you
think that if you do those things you can eat as you now do, drink
as you now do, have the same likes and dislikes? You must go
without sleep, put up with hardship, be away from your own people,
be looked down on by a little slave boy, be laughed at by people
who meet you, get the worse of it in everything, honor, public
office, law course, every little thing. Think about whether you
want to exchange these things for tranquillity, freedom, calm. If
not, do not embrace philosophy, and do not like children be a
philosopher at one time, later a tax-collector, then an orator,
then a procurator of the emperor. These things do not go together.
You must be one person, either good or bad. You must either work on
your ruling principle,14 or work on externals, practice the art
either of what is inside or of what is outside, that is, play the
role either of a philosopher or of a non-philosopher.