What is the current state of my understanding? This is what really matters. As for everything else, it's beyond my control. And if it's beyond my control, then it's dead to me — just smoke.
What is the present estate of my understanding? For herein lieth all indeed. As for all other things, they are without the compass of mine own will: and if without the compass of my will, then are they as dead things unto me, and as it were mere smoke.
Think about how tiny your slice of eternity really is. How quickly it fades back into the great sweep of time. Think about the small piece of the universal substance that makes up your body. The small piece of the universal soul that is yours. The tiny spot on earth where you crawl around. After you truly consider these things, don't let anything else seem important. Focus only on this: do what your own nature requires. Live in harmony with what the common nature provides.
What a small portion of vast and infinite eternity it is, that is allowed unto every one of us, and how soon it vanisheth into the general age of the world: of the common substance, and of the common soul also what a small portion is allotted unto us: and in what a little clod of the whole earth (as it were) it is that thou doest crawl. After thou shalt rightly have considered these things with thyself; fancy not anything else in the world any more to be of any weight and moment but this, to do that only which thine own nature doth require; and to conform thyself to that which the common nature doth afford.