Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.35

Do you not see how the craftsmen accommodate themselves up to a certain point to those who are not skilled in their craft? Nevertheless, they cling to the principles of their art and do not endure to depart from it.

 Is it not strange when the architect and the physician shall have more respect to the principles of their own arts than a man to his own reason, which is common to him and to the gods?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6 (tr Long)

I once sadly had a bit of an adult version of a temper tantrum, when a high and mighty fellow was pontificating about how we all should be doing our jobs. He kept saying, over and over, that nothing was more important than being “professional.”

After about an hour of this, I unfortunately blew a gasket. “What do you think that word means? You keep appealing to it, but I have no sense of what it actually involves. Is there some set of directives for us being professional that I forgot to read?”

The look he gave me clearly told me that I was not being professional. The only response he could give, full of hemming and hawing, was that it involved some vague sense of propriety.

“It means, ummm, doing whatever is, uhhh, acceptable, and, like, sort of appropriate, in, you know, your career, right?” He then struggled for the rest of his talk not to use his favorite word.

We all take our jobs quite seriously, and we do our very best to play by those sacred rules. We may drive recklessly on the road, speak poorly of others behind their backs, cheat on our spouses, or neglect our children, but we dare not violate the professional code.

There, I think, is the root of the problem, and it is exactly what Marcus Aurelius is calling us out for. I may be quite committed to being a good doctor, or lawyer, or banker. Now when did I lose track of being a good human being? I will spend my youth learning the tricks of the trade, my adult years practicing them, and my retirement basking in my glory. In all of my time being a professional, did I actually spend any of my efforts in being loving and understanding?

“Well, you can’t learn that in school, obviously!”

No, I can’t. I can learn to do what is expected of me professionally in school. But life should teach me, right from the start, about virtue. Why am I so dedicated to the skills of my job, about making widgets, about selling doohickeys, and coloring within the lines, while I ignore the only thing I was actually made for, to live well?

These are uncomfortable questions. Perhaps we can appoint a professional committee to discuss them, while I continue to worry more about my career than my character.

Written in 4/2007