By Robert Freedman
Equanimity: a mental or emotional calm, balance, and composure, especially during difficult times, stress, or bad news. It comes from the Latin word aequanimitas, meaning an even or level mind.
I worked one long-ago year delivering furniture. I enjoyed the job; it suited me at the time. I liked driving the big delivery truck, seemed purposeful, and without stress. One of the salesmen at the store, a buttoned up middle-aged guy, often engaged me in conversation when I would drop off my paper work in the office. George was his name and he seemed like a decent enough guy, if a bit wimpy. But I enjoyed talking to him about books we were reading. George liked poetry. I was more into contemporary fiction. He told me he’d been working at that same store for over 20 years, said it with (what I guessed was) a mixture of pride and slight embarrassment. I wondered out loud why he had stuck it out that long in a job that probably didn’t pay much and couldn’t have satisfied any sort of higher aspirations George might have once had. I was young enough then to be frank, and probably boorish, but George wasn’t offended. He seemed to welcome the question.
“It’s because of equanimity,” he told me. “Do you know what that means?”
“I went to college, George. Even took a course in philosophy.”
“Then you understand.”
“Not really. What about this job provides equanimity?”
“It’s not the job,” he told me with a tight smile. “It’s how I live my life. I decided a long time ago to accept my place and be happy with whatever came my way. This work is good enough for me.”
“If you say so. Glad you’re happy, man,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. What went through my head was, that’s not equanimity, George, that’s just giving the hell up.
I’ve thought about that conversation more than a few times over the years, as I struggled with my own attempts to find a meaningful and peaceful life. The two didn’t usually go together. Maybe I needed to be more like George the salesman and just accept my position without complaint. But that never worked for me. I was too restless, too impacted by a world I felt I needed to struggle against. I was young Hamlet always aware and battling against “the slings and arrow of outrageous fortune.”
In later years, still looking for answers to my inner turmoil, I turned to drugs, but soon realized that was not what I needed. The long-term outlook for substance use was a dead-end. It was then I tried meditation and a return to my religious roots, both were encompassed in the practice of sitting with myself, sometimes chanting a Hebrew mantra. The practice was challenging, staying silent, and stilling the run-away brain was difficult for me. I had to continually rein in my thoughts of work and engagement and all the drivel of a busy life. But for a few minutes or even seconds I was able to glimpse a different path, a mindset that was accepting of all things, of the transitory nature of life, and to smile at it all. Maybe this was the equanimity George had spoken about all those years ago. I was learning how to breathe.
As I settle into old age, I try to keep the lessons of meditation in mind, though I no longer have a regular practice. I probably should get back to it. These troubled times we live in require the ability to shut the world out at times and simply be. Now I find that inner peace walking along the shore line, and, strangely, riding waves in the ocean. There I’m free of judging and worrying and fearing for the soul of our civilization. But unlike George, I’m not hiding from the realities of the times. I can find equanimity right alongside being a warrior against injustice. Maybe the two even complement each other. I’m hopeful.
