Make for land today. Seneca, Epistles 2.19.9

Seneca warns Lucilius that he cannot afford to waste time planning for future escape from present danger. If you let yourself be swamped constantly in a sea of business, never altering the course of your life because you must ride the tides of its eternal storms, prepare to die at sea. Every moment will present some peak to you, some summit or invitation to final achievement that awes you and commands your attention. You must learn to ignore these invitations, realizing that they distract you from your true goal: to find land beyond the sea of business, terra firma where you can serve philosophy at peace without being tossed and tumbled.

Volo tibi hoc loco referre dictum Maecenatis vera in ipso eculeo elocuti: ipsa enim altitudo attonat summa. Si quaeris in quo libro dixerit, in eo qui Prometheus inscribitur. Hoc voluit dicere, attonita habet summa. Est ergo tanti ulla potentia ut sit tibi tam ebrius sermo? Ingeniosus ille vir fuit, magnum exemplum Romanae eloquentiae daturus nisi illum enervasset felicitas, immo castrasset. Hic te exitus manet nisi iam contrahes vela, nisi, quod ille sero voluit, terram leges.

I want you here to remember the wise words of Maecenas, uttered from the top of a little pony: "Height itself is enough to frighten us, on any summit." If you inquire where Maecenas published this saying, you will find it recorded in his book Prometheus. His intention there was to say this, that every summit holds things trapped in its awe, terrified by its peak. Is the word of such a man powerful enough to move you? Maecenas was clever and capable, destined to provide us a great example of Roman eloquence until good fortune made him weak, castrating his genius (†). As you drift aimless on the deep sea of business, his is the fate that awaits you, unless perchance you are already shortening sail and seeking the land for which he longed too late.

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(†) Gaius Cilnius Maecenas (c. 70-8 BCE) was a Roman knight in the last era of the republic, descended from the ancient Etruscan family of the Cilnii, from Arretium. He was a close friend to Octavian, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, and assisted the first emperor's rise to power at considerable personal risk. He was also an important patron of the arts, providing society and means to poets whose number included Vergil, Horace, and Propertius. Aspiring to be a writer himself, he published several works, including the one mentioned here by Seneca; unfortunately, they appear to have been quite bad. Octavian and Quintilian join Seneca in condemning them. He was famous for loving luxury: fine clothes, warm baths, ointments, good food, gems.