First, tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly. - Epictetus

If you wish your house to be well managed, imitate the Spartan Lycurgus. For as he did not fence his city with walls, but fortified the inhabitants by virtue and preserved the city always free;35 so do you not cast around (your house) a large court and raise high towers, but strengthen the dwellers by good-will and fidelity and friendship, and then nothing harmful will enter it, not even if the whole band of wickedness shall array itself against it.

When we are invited to a banquet, we take what is put before us. If someone should order the host to serve him fish or pastries, he would seem eccentric. But out in the world, we ask the gods for things they do not give us─even though there are many things they have given us.

The upshot is that if you identify self-interest with piety, honesty, country, parents and friends, then they are all secure.