Whatever happens, happens rightly. Watch closely, and you will find this true. In the succession of events there is not mere sequence alone, but an order that is just right, as from the hand of one who dispense to their due.

In a word, if there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not thou also be governed by it.

Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of thy destiny. For what is more suitable? In

So there are two reasons to embrace what happens. One is that it's happening to you. It was prescribed for you, and it pertains to you. The thread was spun long ago, by the oldest cause of all.

But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.

Whatsoever is, was made for something: as a horse, a vine. Why wonderest thou? The sun itself will say of itself, I was made for something; and so hath every god its proper function. What then were thou made for? to disport and delight thyself? See how even common sense and reason cannot brook it.

i. Nothing can happen to me that isn't natural. ii. I can keep from doing anything that God and my own spirit don't approve. No one can force me to.

Willingly therefore, and wholly surrender up thyself unto that fatal concatenation, yielding up thyself unto the fates, to be disposed of at their pleasure.

Love only what befalls thee and is spun for thee by fate. For what can be more befitting for thee?

What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.

You can wipe your feet on me, twist my motives around all you like, you can dump millstones on my head and drown me in the river, but you can't get me out of the story. I'm the plot, babe, and don't ever forget it.

You take the first step, and to save yourself from the consequences, you take the next one. In times like ours, there are only two directions: up or plummet.