This is my adaptation of Section L (50) of the Enchiridion by Epictetus. My “canonical” reference point is the 1758 translation by Elizabeth Carter, and I considered those by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and George Long for comparison. Still, this isn’t a direct translation, but a faithful modernization in my own voice. A fanwork, perhaps. The handbook as a whole is quite moving, but this chapter is its crown jewel. I hope my version achieves Epictetus’s same straightforward exhortation.
Whatever rules you have adopted, abide by them as if they were inviolable laws. And have no regard for what anyone says about this, for it is now out of your hands.
How long will you wait before you stop defying your own judgement and demand the best from yourself? You have seen all the principles that you needed to learn, and you have learned them. So what are you waiting for, as an excuse to delay your reformation?
You are no longer a child but a self-sovereign adult.
So if you are negligent and slothful, and always add procrastination to procrastination, intention to intention, and plan day after day for when you will begin, you will accomplish nothing. And you will remain a fool as you live and until you die.
This instant then, think yourself worthy of living as a human being, grown up and proficient. Let whatever appears the best be to you an immutable law.
And if any pain or pleasure, glory or shame, threatens to shake you from this path, remember that now is the combat. Now the Olympiad comes and it cannot be delayed. Victory or defeat here counts for all.
In this way Socrates became perfect, improving himself in all things by following his rationality. And though you are not Socrates, you ought to live as one walking the same path as Socrates.