Too little
Defensive reaction
“That has nothing to do with the result.”
Answering before hearing the question turns a manageable moment into a contest.
Composure
Collect your response before answering scrutiny.
Readiness to collect oneself under pressure so that one’s response remains deliberate and considerate.
Composure restores deliberate, considerate action when pressure disrupts you. Scientific discussion can expose a mistake in front of others. A collected response gives you room to understand the question, acknowledge what happened and decide what needs an answer.
Composure gives a usable next sentence
Your snail photograph appears upside down. A colleague raises a hand just as you notice it. Heat reaches your face; several explanations arrive in your mind before the question does. You turn the image, hear the question through and ask which observation the colleague wants to discuss. The snail returns to the floor. So does the conversation.
Finding the balance in Composure
A presentation mishap and an unexpected question arrive together during a friendly discussion.
A fitting response
A collected response
“Let me turn that around. Which part would you like me to explain?”
You repair the visible mishap and direct attention to the actual inquiry.
Pursued too far
Rigid poise
“Nothing has happened; I must never show that I am flustered.”
Protecting a flawless appearance can prevent the simple acknowledgment that would let everyone move on.
Recovering the exchange matters more than preserving an uninterrupted performance.
What Composure makes possible
Composure allows feeling and useful action to coexist. You can admit that a question needs thought, ask for it to be restated or return with an answer after the discussion. Colleagues receive reasons instead of the first defensive impulse, and you retain the chance to learn from scrutiny.
Composure in ordinary life
A harsh review
An evening draft answers the tone of a reviewer’s report. Return when you can separate the criticism of the claim from the sting of its wording; the useful reply may need a correction as well as a defense.
An error message
When a demonstration fails, describe what the audience can still see and decide whether to continue or show the prepared record.
Nearby virtues, different work
Patience
Patience bears the longer wait for understanding; Composure concerns collecting the response at the moment pressure hits.
Humility
Humility admits the limit or mistake; Composure makes a deliberate acknowledgment possible while you feel exposed.
Composure and its counterfeits
Counterfeit Composure: polished dismissal
A cool voice can conceal a refusal to hear a reasonable objection. Genuine composure keeps the exchange considerate and responsive.
How to cultivate Composure
Listen for the actual question before defending an answer.
Use a brief pause to choose the next useful sentence.
Separate the repair of a mishap from the evaluation of a claim.
Try it today
In an ordinary, nonthreatening discussion, pause before answering one unexpected question. Check that you understand it, then answer the part you can.
Questions worth returning to
- What did I hear, and what did I assume?
- Would acknowledging the disruption make the next step easier?
Keep the practice proportionate
You may end or defer an abusive exchange. Composure does not require staying available to mistreatment.
Quotations and further reading
Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.
I have not hesitated to speak strongly where I have felt strongly; and I am but too conscious that the indicative and imperative moods have too often taken the place of the more becoming subjunctive and conditional.
Huxley notices how force of feeling can alter the force of a statement. A collected response can preserve conviction while choosing a more accurate degree of assertion.
It implies a determination to wait calmly for the statement of the whole, before we pronounce judgment in the form of either acquiescence or dissent.
John Tyndall · Fragments of Science · Vol. II, VI. Scientific Materialism.
Tyndall is asking listeners to hear an argument before welcoming or rejecting it. The composed response keeps its judgment available until the relevant account has been heard.
I shall not attempt to heap together all the causes of complaint; but, by selecting a few in different departments, endeavour to convince them that some alteration is essentially necessary for the promotion of that very object which we both by such different roads pursue.
Charles Babbage · Reflections on the Decline of Science in England · Preface
Babbage announces a disciplined choice of examples in a strongly critical book. A measured reply can identify the change needed without turning every grievance into part of the argument.
… when I try to hold the necessary group of thoughts in mind at one time, with the judgment suspended on almost all of them, then my head becomes giddy, and I am obliged to lay all aside for a while.
Michael Faraday · Personal Recollections · Faraday to Somerville, January 17, 1859
Faraday describes pausing when the intellectual load exceeds what he can presently hold. Setting work aside can preserve deliberate thought better than forcing a performance.
Were I to take their word for it, we are profound only on condition of being obscure.
Jean-Henri Fabre · The Wonders of Instinct · Chapter 1 · trans. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
Fabre answers criticism of his readable style by identifying the assumption behind it. The relevant response concerns clarity and substance, rather than merely returning the sting.
This is what we generally do, but sometimes with rather an ill humor.
Poincaré admits that abandoning a failed hypothesis can irritate its author. The feeling is recognizable; the important question is whether the response still follows the evidence.
In cases of striking novelty or unusual perplexity, the difficulty, however, is likely to present itself at first as a shock, as emotional disturbance, as a more or less vague feeling of the unexpected, of something queer, strange, funny, or disconcerting.
John Dewey · How We Think · Chapter Six
An intellectual problem may first arrive as a feeling, Dewey observes. Naming the actual difficulty can turn that unsettled moment into a deliberate inquiry.
Continue through the catalog
Practice this collection
Choose this approved collection as an optional workbook program, or select individual virtues in My Virtues.