Marcus Aurelius spends most of this passage on the man who does a service and keeps no account of it. Then he adds one short line, and it is there for the reader who has taken the first part to heart. Let’s read the line he added.
Do not fear that for this reason thou wilt omit any social act.
He saw what his own description could be used for. A man reads that the good act is the one done with no wish to be seen, then a small act occurs to him, he looks inside himself, finds the wish sitting right there, and stays still. Marcus says the wish is not a reason to stay still.
The line separates two things that arrive together. There is the act — the message, the hand on the door, the thing said out loud. And there is the accounting that comes with it. The teaching takes away the accounting and leaves the act exactly where it was.
Hold the act back until the motive is clean and the first cost is plain: the thing does not get done, and the person it was for never finds out it was considered. The second cost is quieter. The moment went on your own motive, which is more time spent on yourself than the act would have taken.
Go ahead with the mixed motive in full view and the cost is that you do not get to be clean. You send the message knowing that part of why you sent it was to be the person who sent it. Nothing comes along afterwards to settle that, and the act is already out of your hands.
So what are we aiming at. We want the act to go out at the moment it occurs to us, with the motive left exactly where it is.
Let us see where this shows up in an ordinary day. Three places.
- You think of messaging someone who has been unwell, and then you notice you would rather like to be the person who messaged.
- Somebody is struggling with bags at a door, your hand is already moving, and a small wish to be seen helping comes along with it.
- You are about to say something warm to someone at home, and you hear in advance how well it is going to sound.
In all three, watch for the second decision — the one taken about yourself, just after the first one. One question, two answers. Did the act go out, or did it stop on the way to be inspected.
You are not deciding anything in that second, and you are not trying to clean the motive up before you move. Watch the second decision arrive, and leave it as it is.