Confession

I have grown somewhat weary of my shiatsu colleagues--not of my clients, who are wonderful, clever, generous, insightful human beings--but my fellow practitioners. If I have to endure one more conversation that takes as its starting point the presupposition that The Law of Attraction is really a "law" of the universe, witness one more debate about the symptoms of entity possession and the best cure thereof, or hear any more tales of the healing properties of angels, spirit guides, and/or crystals, I might just snap. I may show symptoms of demonic possession myself.

Many of my colleagues, mind you, are not like this. It just seems that the ones who are will Not Stop Talking. Most startling to me is that the offenders are completely unselfconscious about their cockamamie ideas.

Of course, this is just one branch of a General Misanthropy I'm experiencing of late. Other irritations include Printer Discourtesy (PUT YOUR DAMN LABELS IN THE PRINTER WHEN YOU'RE PRINTING LABELS, RESTOCK THE PAPER WHEN YOU PRINT THE ENTIRE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA); No One Knows Who Replaces the Toner Cartridge; Yakking on Cell Phone While Driving an SUV Too Large For You to Handle--that means YOU, Soccer Mom and Angry/Entitled Corporate Guy; and, my favorite, Outsourcing/Slashing Pay for Local Vendors in Order To Line the Pockets of Senior Management (NOT Ethical).

Word of the Day: Equanimity

I have certain nihilistic tendencies, but I channel them into equanimity.

My mother, while a very loving woman, is devoid of equanimity. She carries other people's worries. Her classroom comes home with her every single day. She finds the Sad in the funny stories I tell about my Alzheimer's patients in hospice. She cannot stop worrying about my sister, her students, my brother, random people she reads about in the news, or the state of education in Massachusetts.

After I gave shiatsu to a yogini friend this weekend, she said, "Sometimes I feel spaced out or exhausted after massages. Instead, I feel like the shiatsu put me in a state of equanimity."

Equanimity.