I left the house early. It was Veteran’s Day, the roads were empty, and I had plenty of time to spare. I'd be early, like always.

Then, dead stop. Brake lights stretching to the horizon. Ten-foot progress every ten minutes. I sat there for forty-five minutes to move one mile, and my jaw was tightening with each passing second.

Fine. I'll take the shortcut through downtown.

Except Congress Street was closed for a parade. Cars everywhere. Crowds. Noise. Nowhere to go. My blood pressure climbing with each blocked intersection. I had to swallow my pride and crawl back to the highway like a scolded child.

I ended up getting to work at 9:30. Thirty minutes late. And nobody cared. Not my boss, not my teammates. Only me. But I stayed angry anyway. At myself. For the next thirty minutes, I replayed the morning like I could somehow reverse it. The parade, the jam, the turns. I blamed myself for something completely outside my control.

What would the Yogis say about that moment?

They would say, as Yogi Ramacharaka wrote, that "the Yogi never hurries or becomes irritated. He knows that hurrying and irritation are wasteful of energy. He moves calmly, quietly, and with perfect self-possession… He is never in a rush, and yet he always manages to get there in time."

I wasn't calm. I wasn't quiet. I was the opposite of self-possessed. I'd let circumstances I couldn't control hijack my entire morning, then punish myself for being human.

Equanimity means refusing to turn small disruptions into catastrophes. It means recognizing when you're wasting energy on things that don't deserve it. I know this. I preach this. And still, I spent too much time seething at myself over being thirty minutes late.

That morning traffic was much heavier. Nothing more. I made it heavier by carrying it longer than necessary. That's on me. And it's okay.

We can plan, prepare, show up early every day of the year, and still, one morning, we’ll end up stuck. Figuratively or literally. That's life moving in its own direction. And we’ll be fine.

So we must give ourselves a break. We’re human. We’re unfolding. The step back is part of the rhythm. Keep your cool when you can. And when you can't? Be kind to yourself. That's also part of the practice.