If you truly follow these principles and stop caring what others call you, you will become a new person and start a new life. To keep living as you have been—going through the same confusion and troubles that come with your old way of life—is foolish. It shows you're too attached to life itself. You'd be like those half-dead fighters in the arena, covered in wounds and blood from wild beasts, who beg to be spared until tomorrow so they can face the same claws and teeth all over again.
These then if inviolably thou shalt observe, and shalt not be ambitious to be so called by others, both thou thyself shalt become a new man, and thou shalt begin a new life. For to continue such as hitherto thou hast been, to undergo those distractions and distempers as thou must needs for such a life as hitherto thou hast lived, is the part of one that is very foolish, and is overfond of his life. Whom a man might compare to one of those half-eaten wretches, matched in the amphitheatre with wild beasts; who as full as they are all the body over with wounds and blood, desire for a great favour, that they may be reserved till the next day, then also, and in the same estate to be exposed to the same nails and teeth as before.