Upset, Anger and Staying In Equanimity

The opportunity for upset has presented itself more than normal, it seems, since we’ve been discussing equanimity this week.

Last evening, a friend and I dined at a local restaurant on the ground floor of an office building in Brentwood. After dinner, we lingered to work on a project together. In the parking garage, we were told we owed the maximum day parking charge even though we had been validated for two hours. All this while other customers were leaving the parking lot and not being asked for their tickets at all.

Interesting, huh, to want to stay calm and not be triggered by feelings of being treated badly as the parking attendant wouldn’t say his name, was taking down our license plate numbers, basically threatening us? What?

We made a choice of equanimity: remaining centered, calling the manager and staying an extra 20 minutes until the situation was resolved.

There were other choices: get really angry and leave without paying, pay and leave really angry, or pay and feel victimized. Upset was very tempting, but ultimately it would have been counterproductive.

How do you handle upset at restaurants, banks, stores and the like? Are you able to hold on to equanimity? What kinds of experiences have you had where either the presence or the lack of equanimity had a significant impact on the outcome?

Copyright 2009. E. B. Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.

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