A Letter from Chris Suarez
A JAPANESE LESSON IN BROOKLYN
There is a bench in Brooklyn that has been there for at least twenty five years. I know that because I have been coming to sit on that same bench for exactly that long. Something tells me that it had been there for 25 year before I even started coming.
A few mornings ago before the sun came up and my day started I decided to run down the Hudson River Greenway on the west side of Manhattan. I looped around the bottom of the island through Battery Park, and crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge to run the promenade. I’ve run that hundreds of times. But that morning as I ran the promenade through Brooklyn Bridge Park, I passed this bench that was so familiar to me. I had somewhat forgotten how often I used to come down here.
It’s a bench that I have solved many problems on - mostly problems I had created myself. I have had incredible conversations on this bench. I built pieces of my future on that bench and tore down pieces of my past on that bench. I’ve sat there with friends and spent many hours there mostly alone.
It has been a while since I have been here. I told myself that I came more when I had more time to think more. And yet it reminded me of something I read recently about the Japanese word ma. There is a lesson there for all of us. In the Japanese language the word ma refers to an empty space that is intentionally there. The Japanese use it in their art, in their architecture, in their gardens, in their language. They have culturally been masters of the empty space. Their empty space hold as much value and importance as the space that they fill. It draws your eye and your mind to the intention of that space and the pause it creates. They use ma as a way to create positive space.
That bench is an empty space.
In the western world, we can find any possible way to fill any empty space we find. We fill our entire calendars with appointments. We fill our weekends with activities. We fill our potential evenings of quiet with tv and entertainment. We fill our vacations meant for down time with non stop activity. We fill the quiet with voices and music - barely walking around without headphones. We fill empty spaces in our towns and cities with housing and buildings and commercial centers.
It’s as if we are afraid of ma.
The greatest decisions, the strongest relationships, the most brilliant leaders, and the most successful companies are built on benches like this one. It's the quiet time alone or the pause from the frenetic that gives us the space to choose, to build, to create, to innovate, and to deepen. It doesn’t mean we need to go away for a few days or find a cabin in the woods for a week. As great as that may be, when we make it too formal of an event, it rarely happens. We need to habitually find empty space if we intend to grow as humans and as business owners and as leaders. Maybe it’s a bench. Maybe it’s in the woods, at the ocean, on the trail, or at the lake. Or maybe it’s your front porch or back deck. Maybe it’s that chair in that one room in your house that you go to. Maybe it’s in the morning. Maybe it’s at night.
Wherever it may be, find your park bench. Find your ma.
Find that empty space and let it be empty. Don’t try to fill it.
Intentionally allow yourself to think without distraction about what’s important now. Take out the earbuds and put away the phone.
You need not be too structured. But you need that space to think.
Chris