The Unsettled Are Easily Swayed

Those who are not yet settled in the path they have taken up often hear others praised for different pursuits and virtues, and are so stirred by that praise that they try at once to copy their method. In this, human weakness is sure to spend its efforts for nothing. For it is impossible for one and the same person to excel at once in all the good works I listed above. And if anyone is eager to take up all of them equally, he is sure to come to this: while he pursues them all, he will not fully succeed in any one, and he will lose more than he gains from this changing and shifting about. For people advance toward God in many ways, and so each one should complete the way he has once settled on, never changing the course of his purpose, so that he may be perfect in whatever way of life is his.