We should develop an easy-going attitude. Don't get too attached to whatever situation fate has given you. Be ready to adapt when circumstances change. Don't fear changes to your plans or your place in life. Just don't become fickle — that's the worst enemy of peace of mind. Stubborn people who refuse to bend often force Fortune to wrestle some compromise from them. This makes them anxious and miserable. But fickle people who can never commit to anything are even worse off. Both extremes destroy your peace — changing nothing and being satisfied with nothing. Your mind should turn away from focusing on external things and look inward instead. Let it trust itself, find joy in itself, and admire its own achievements. Avoid other people's affairs as much as possible. Devote yourself to yourself. Don't dwell on losses. Even when bad things happen, find a way to see them in a good light.
Moreover, we ought to cultivate an easy temper, and not become over fond of the lot which fate has assigned to us, but transfer ourselves to whatever other condition chance may lead us to, and fear no alteration, either in our purposes or our position in life, provided that we do not become subject to caprice, which of all vices is the most hostile to repose: for obstinacy, from which Fortune often wrings some concession, must needs be anxious and unhappy, but caprice, which can never restrain itself, must be more so. Both of these qualities, both that of altering nothing, and that of being dissatisfied with everything, are energies to repose. The mind ought in all cases to be called away from the contemplation of external things to that of itself: let it confide in itself, rejoice in itself, admire its own works; avoid as far as may be those of others, and devote itself to itself; let it not feel losses, and put a good construction even upon misfortunes.