The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [165]
In his Constitutions, Ignatius places a surprising emphasis on the need to attend to a “proper concern with the preservation of one’s health.” In a section called The Preservation of the Body, he shows an understanding of the need for a balance among work, prayer, and rest, based on his own early experience, when he favored extreme penances that damaged his health. Ultimately, he recognized the need for moderation. “With a healthy body, you will be able to do much,” he wrote to his friend Teresa Rejadell.
For Ignatius, the requirements for a healthy life for Jesuits include maintaining a “regular” schedule, and caring for “food, clothing, living quarters, and other bodily needs.” He recognized the need for exercise, even for sedentary Jesuits:
Just as it is unwise to assign so much physical labor that the spirit should be oppressed and the body be harmed, so too some bodily exercise to help both the body and the spirit is ordinarily expedient for all, even for those who must apply themselves to mental labors.
These ways of self-care are to be “exercised by all.” It is a warning against overwork.
In his perfectly named book CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap, the psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell notes that pathological overwork may not simply reflect the real demands on our time, but may mask underlying problems. Overbusyness, he suggests, acts as a kind of high and also serves as a status symbol. We may also fear being left out if we slow down; and we avoid dealing with some of the realities of life—poverty, death, global warming—by frantically running from task to task. And, he suggests, we may not know how not to be busy.
Having regular times for prayer and solitude, and a mixture of work and rest, even in the midst of a busy life, is an important step on the way to becoming a contemplative in action. This does not mean that you have to be lazy. Far from it. But the possibility for contemplation grows slimmer if you are always stressed out, frazzled, or ready to collapse from fatigue.
Working (and Living) Ethically
When I studied business ethics as an undergraduate at the Wharton School, most of the textbook cases were of the black-and-white variety, with simple answers. Would you give a bribe to someone who demanded one? (No.) Would you pollute the environment with nasty chemicals? (No.) Would you discriminate on the basis of race or sex? (No.)
When I entered the business world, I was surprised to learn how much subtler most ethical dilemmas are and how rarely they are framed in black-and-white terms.
This is not to say that the black-and-white dilemmas never arise. A good friend of mine, an accountant, was once asked by a manager to falsify some figures on a report. He refused politely, and the manager saw that he was wrong and apologized.
Subtler problems are more common. How, for example, do you respond when you discover that you work in a corporation where moral values are not always paramount? During my time in human resources, I was asked to confront a manager who was planning to fire a longtime employee. That employee had just received an incentive award for outstanding performance. Finding it bizarre that we would suddenly fire one of our top-performing employees, I told the manager it was a bad idea.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I want him out. I don’t like him.”
I reminded him that this middle-aged employee had been with the company for twenty years and had always done a good job and, also, that disliking someone was not a valid reason for dismissal. None of that mattered, I was told. Finally, I said in desperation, “Have some compassion. The guy’s got a family.” The executive’s answer was short and memorable. “To hell with compassion!” he said. (He used even stronger language.) Fortunately, his boss overruled him, and the employee stayed,