Take wisdom's road. Seneca, Epistles 4.37.3-5

Don't wait for life to happen, driving you down paths chosen for you haphazardly by events. Seize the reason that shows you the straight way to wisdom, a path that folk walk deliberately, as they choose. Your way to death should not be chaotic, as the way of fortune is.

Quomodo ergo inquis me expediam? Effugere non potes necessitates, potes vincere. Fit via; et hanc tibi viam dabit philosophia. Ad hanc te confer si vis salvus esse, si securus, si beatus, denique si vis esse, quod est maximum, liber; hoc contingere aliter non potest. Humilis res est stultitia, abiecta, sordida, servilis, multis affectibus et saevissimis subiecta. Hos tam graves dominos, interdum alternis imperantes, interdum pariter, dimittit a te sapientia, quae sola libertas est. Una ad hanc fert via, et quidem recta; non aberrabis; vade certo gradu. Si vis omnia tibi subicere, te subice rationi; multos reges, si ratio te rexerit. Ab illa disces quid et quemadmodum aggredi debeas; non incides rebus.

Neminem mihi dabis qui sciat quomodo quod vult coeperit velle: non consilio adductus illo sed impetu impactus est. Non minus saepe fortuna in nos incurrit quam nos in illam. Turpe est non ire sed ferri, et subito in medio turbine rerum stupentem quaerere, huc ego quemadmodum veni? Vale.

“How then shall I make my way?” you ask. You cannot escape the suffering your situation imposes, but you can conquer it. Here the way opens (†), and philosophy will grant it to you. Take this way if you want to be sane, safe, and blessed—if you want what is greatest of all, which is to be free. There is no other road to freedom. Stupidity is a lowly state: abject, foul, & servile, subject to the most savage emotional outbursts. Wisdom, the only real freedom, dismisses your emotions, those grievous lords who are always issuing contradictory commands. Only one road leads to wisdom, and it is a straight path, with no deviations. Make your way with firm step. If you desire to subject all things, subject yourself first to reason, your guide on wisdom's path. You will rule many kings, if reason has first ruled you. From her you will learn what to approach, and how. You will not rush blind into things.

You will never show me anyone who knows how he began to want to whatever he wants: his wanting arises not from any deliberate plan, but from impulse. Fortune runs wild into us no less often than we into her. It is a shameful thing for us to be carried shiftless, instead of making our way—to find ourselves all of a sudden gaping in the midst of another worldly revolution, asking, “How on earth did I get here?” Farewell.

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(†) Seneca here quotes Vergil, from the description of Troy's fall in the Aeneid. The wooden horse has done its work, smuggling Greeks into the city. After describing how Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, breaks the door of Priam's palace, the poet adds a couplet surveying the wider scene (2.494-5):

fit via vi; rumpunt aditus primosque trucidant

immissi Danai et late loca milite complent.

Violence opens here the way

Danaans break the doors and slay

Cutting down the first they meet

Swarming thick in every street.