As long as we wander around without direction, following nothing but the shouting and conflicting noise of people pulling us in different directions, we'll waste our short lives in pointless wandering. This happens even when we work day and night to understand things better. So we shouldn't decide where to go or what path to take without advice from someone experienced — someone who has already explored the territory we're about to enter. This journey isn't like other trips. On regular trips, you can follow clear roads and ask locals for directions to avoid getting lost. But in life, the most popular and crowded paths are exactly the ones that lead us furthest astray.
But as long as we wander at random, not following any guide except the shouts and discordant clamours of those who invite us to proceed in different directions, our short life will be wasted in useless roamings, even if we labour both day and night to get a good understanding. Let us not therefore decide whither we must tend, and by what path, without the advice of some experienced person who has explored the region which we are about to enter, because this journey is not subject to the same conditions as others; for in them some distinctly understood track and inquiries made of the natives make it impossible for us to go wrong, but here the most beaten and frequented tracks are those which lead us most astray.