Equanimity. It’s a word I needed to hear spoken twenty-five times before I knew how to pronounce it. Forty years ago, the word “melancholy” challenged me in the same way. I was Patty in the musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” and that word was in my script. Before the play, I thought it was pronounced “meh-lon’-ko-lee” instead of “melon-collie.” I still pause before I say it.
Equanimity, according to Merriam-Webster, is pronounced “ē-kwə-ˈni-mə-tē” and is the evenness of mind especially under stress. This word reminds me of stoicism, which is defined by the same source as the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feeling and without complaint. Depending on how well a person carries a poker face, both may very well look the same from the outside.
Both stoicism and equanimity point to a detachment from the mire of life. I see a river filled with sludge where stoicism is an awkward wooden boat and aboard are paddlers churning enormous oars, solemnly determined to make it through to clear waters. For equanimity to travel the same river, sailors in silk flowing robes pull the oars into the boat and force a layer of air between the bottom of the sleek keel and the murky waters, and that air angles in the right direction to propel the hovercraft forward smoothly.
I’ve dabbled in stoicism most of my life. When facing challenges my tactic has been to move through the situation. Literally, that mantra runs through my head: “I will move through this.” I lower my head like an ox in a harness and move ahead with constant pressure. Big oars. With stoicism, I see the present moment as not OK, but OK as being just around the bend. Keep paddling.
Equanimity is more gracious with the present; there’s an elevated trust that the slog doesn’t have to be so intense. The ten thousand what-ifs do not need to be considered in the present moment—all within one inhale and one exhale. As for stepping up out of the mire and staying in the realm of equanimity? A challenge.
There is no recipe for equanimity. I see it as a conscious choice of finding balance every day. We aren’t the Ingalls living on the prairie. Many of us live in an environment where stuff is being relentlessly flung at us. While we can’t stop the slingers of messy cow pies, we can step out of the path of the projectiles. Walk away. Turn it off. Once we peel ourselves out of the spin, calm seeps into each breath in the altered, protective continuum of equanimity.