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A Space of Quiet
T
HE MODERN WORLD SEEMS AT ODDS
with much of the
guidance offered in this book. Daily life, many people
feel, is accelerated and fragmented. Managers everywhere
are under pressure to provide action and answers now. As a
result, when they must choose between right and right, managers
often have little opportunity to step back and reflect on the
complex issues, personal and professional, that they must somehow
resolve.
This is a hazardous situation. Right-versus-right decisions are
challenging enough, even when managers have the luxury of think-
ing them through. The stakes are high: right-versus-right choices
are defining moments in which managers reveal, test, and shape—
sometimes irrevocably—their values and those of their organiza-
tions. These decisions involve difficult conflicts among managers’
responsibilities to themselves, to other people in their organizations,
and to other groups in society.
Fortunately, responsible managers are unlikely to ignore defining
moments entirely, even if their lives are hectic. Right-versus-right
decisions call attention to themselves because they pull managers
in several different directions simultaneously. Managers know some-
121
122 D
EFINING
M
OMENTS
thing is amiss; they feel torn. The disquieting question Do you
think you can govern innocently? looms in the background.
But what then? If life is a merry-go-round, whirling faster and
faster as the carnival music blares, where is the time and space for
personal reflection? How do questions like This is my way, where
is yours? get the care and consideration they deserve? How can
one pursue the ‘‘simplicity on the other side of complexity’’ when
complexities lie everywhere? And are there ways to avoid the serious
tactical errors, like those that nearly cost Peter Adario his job and
his self-esteem, or the deep, permanent regrets, like those the butler
Stevens contemplated as his career neared its end? The challenge,
in short, is to find ways to keep the immediately important from
overwhelming the fundamentally important.
M
ARCUS
A
URELIUS
One way to do this is through the advice and example of a man
who addressed this challenge head on, in both his writings and his
life: This is Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and philosopher—
and a distant forebear of both the managers and the philosophers we
have examined.
Marcus knew full well the cares and responsibilities of practical
life because he spent much of his adulthood grappling with almost-
overwhelming administrative responsibilities. Between
A.D.
161 and
180, he ruled a vast, diverse, unruly empire that spanned much of
Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Marcus was also Pontifex
Maximus, the chief priest of the Roman religion, and the highest
judge in the Roman courts. Near the end of his life, when his health
was failing, he spent years far from Rome, leading its armies in long
campaigns against invading tribes.
Remarkably, this busy, burdened, practical man was also a philoso-
pher. Marcus cared about the ethics of daily life and practical wisdom,
not grand theory or systematic knowledge. One commentator de-
scribes him this way: ‘‘Marcus was a Roman, not greatly drawn to
discursive thought, but fascinated by the problems of action, of
dealing with people, of adjustment to work, of maintaining serenity
in a whirl of exacting business.’’
1
A Space of Quiet 123
For guidance in life, Marcus turned to Stoicism. This school of
philosophy, which had originated in Greece four centuries before
he lived, was actually more of a religion than a systematic theory,
for its principal aim was to provide meaning and direction for every-
day life. Stoics sought comfort in divine providence, prized virtue
and reason, sought liberation from passions, and tried not to concern
themselves with matters they could not control.
How did Marcus Aurelius combine the life of action with the
spirit of reflection? How did he take the long view of the urgent
tasks of the present moment? The answers lie in his personal
journal. During the last years of his life, Marcus kept an in-
formal record of his reflections, observations, and self-criticisms.
He wrote for himself, not for the eyes of others. He wanted to
understand who he was and how he should work and live. Marcus
called the journal To Himself, and only centuries later did it come
to be called Meditations.
Here is a description of Marcus, seated in a large tent, writing
by candlelight during a military campaign:
When the camp had gone to sleep, the emperor, who was late to bed
and early to rise, sat at his table and took stock, not of battles,
sieges, and fortunes, of which there is little mention, but of himself,
his state of mind, his lapses from justice or from speaking the truth
or from command of his temper. He used these night hours to conjure
up the ideals he had set before himself as a man and as a ruler of
men, to see them more clearly, to consider what they demanded of
him, to consider what he was in the light of what he might have
been and in reason ought to be.
2
The life and thoughts of Marcus Aurelius suggest three lessons for
escaping the tyranny of the here-and-now and making the guidance
in this book as concrete and useful as possible.
M
OMENTS OF
S
ERENITY
The first lesson Marcus Aurelius might suggest for managers has
nothing to do with work. In fact, its focus is on not working. Marcus’s
124 D
EFINING
M
OMENTS
advice would be to work hard to create moments of serenity. Again
and again, throughout Meditations, Marcus reminds himself to slow
down and step back, to withdraw and reflect. He writes, ‘‘Are you
distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet,
wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to
curb your restlessness.’’
3
He tells himself ‘‘Nowhere can a man find
a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.’’
4
And,
again, ‘‘Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continu-
ally renew yourself.’’
5
This talk of retirement and retreat may sound otherworldly and
monkish. It may suggest someone without the stomach for the hard
work of trying to make a practical difference in the world. But there
is no indication that Marcus ever shirked the duties and cares of his
position. He ruled until his death—and may actually have hastened
it—because he refused, to the very end, to lay down any of the
duties and burdens of his office.
Marcus believed that serenity could protect him from the hazard
of overimmersion, of losing himself and his bearings in the unending
stream of life’s tasks. Serenity was also his antidote for the incessant
clamor, unending petitions, and elaborate intrigues of court life.
Marcus sought not to hide from life, but to renew himself to live it
better—to understand his responsibilities and prepare to meet them,
psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Were Marcus Aurelius alive today, he might well ask managers
whether they have, somewhere in their lives, a counterpart to his tent,
with its candle and plain table. He would be inquiring (discreetly and
quietly—for he was, by all accounts, a gentle soul) not about a
physical location, but about a mental retreat where they could reflect
and renew themselves. Marcus might well be astonished and con-
cerned at how infrequently the men and women who shoulder so
many of the world’s responsibilities remove themselves from other
people, agendas, deadlines, telephones, and computers and simply
sit for a while and examine themselves, their lives, their thoughts
and feelings.
Here, for example, are the recollections of a widely respected
executive, shortly after his retirement as chairman of a very successful
Fortune 500 firm:
A Space of Quiet 125
I dropped out for two months last year. I went to Colorado and took off
my watch; I just dropped off. I was astonished at how much stress I’d
been living under for the last 35 years. The stress just peeled off and peeled
off and peeled off and the adrenaline drained out of me....I’vegotto
learn to live at a much lower adrenaline level and be happy with myself.
I’ve got to learn not to be totally addicted to a schedule of rapid interaction
with others, to be addicted to how others see me, something which,
unfortunately, is extremely important in terms of running a business.
6
Marcus would urge the men and women who recognize themselves
in this passage to find or make some time that is genuinely their
own, time when they are not serving as nodes in a network of tasks
and relationships. His concern would be that busy managers find
ways to create ‘‘a space of quiet’’ in their lives.
T
HE
S
EARCH FOR
L
IVED
T
RUTHS
Marcus’s second lesson is implicit in scores of entries in Meditations.
He believed that moments of serenity and reflection should be used,
in part, as preparation for the tasks of everyday life and work, and
for the occasional, often crucial challenges we have called ‘‘defining
moments.’’ Marcus filled his journal with reminders, warnings, exhor-
tations, and suggestions. They reveal a mind preoccupied with the
question of how to live, think, work, lead, and act. Even when
Marcus reflects, as he often does, on the nature of the universe, the
fate of humankind, or his own mortality, he usually draws lessons
for his life in the here-and-now.
How did Marcus use his periods of reflection to prepare himself
to meet his responsibilities? Perhaps the most valuable part of the
answer lies—albeit in disguise—in the first chapter of Meditations.
Here Marcus expresses gratitude, one by one, to more than a dozen
people, each of whom influenced his life. He begins with his grand-
father, thanking him for his example of ‘‘courtesy and serenity.’’ Near
the end of the chapter, just before he concludes by thanking the
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