Imagine someone at the wrestling school scratches you badly with their nails and cuts your head. You're hurt, but you don't cry out or get angry at them. You don't suspect them of trying to harm you on purpose. Even when you protect yourself from them, you don't treat them like an enemy. You avoid them without anger or suspicion — just gently stepping away. Keep this same attitude in the rest of your life. There are many situations we should handle like opponents at the wrestling school. As I said, we can avoid and protect ourselves without suspicion or hatred.
Suppose that at the palestra somebody hath all to-torn thee with his nails, and hath broken thy head. Well, thou art wounded. Yet thou dost not exclaim; thou art not offended with him. Thou dost not suspect him for it afterwards, as one that watcheth to do thee a mischief. Yea even then, though thou dost thy best to save thyself from him, yet not from him as an enemy. It is not by way of any suspicious indignation, but by way of gentle and friendly declination. Keep the same mind and disposition in other parts of thy life also. For many things there be, which we must conceit and apprehend, as though we had had to do with an antagonist at the palestra. For as I said, it is very possible for us to avoid and decline, though we neither suspect, nor hate.