Decisions.

“Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.”  ~Author Unknown

When I was younger decisions would really make me nervous. Maybe it was due to paranoia about how I would look to others or perhaps because I took myself a bit too seriously. I eventually came to the conclusion that having an aneurism every time I buy clothes, or choose a direction to go in when semi-lost perhaps wasn’t the most efficient use of my energy. I also realized that often it was the decisions I didn’t think about much, or at all, that got me where I needed to be, or helped me realize something I wasn’t expecting to believe or understand. Often it was these decisions that allowed me to begin to move past the paranoia and my over-serious attitude.

One such decision occurred a little over a year ago, a week before Thanksgiving. For the past three years I had been working to grow my hair out into luxurious locks that I could swish around with a graceful swing of my head. My entire life and personality makes that last sentence entirely oxymoronic. Not to say that my long hair wasn’t very silky and swish-able. Rather it was the head that it was attached to that made swishing and graceful tossing impossible. I will be honest: I was, at times, a bit vain about my hair, even though I was well aware of exactly how far I was away from a career with Garneir. Anyway, about a year ago I decided, for some reason, that I wanted a haircut and I needed a change. Just to make it very charitable and justifiable, I decided to also donate my hair to Locks of Love. I have a friend who used to be a professional hairdresser and so, as usual, I went to her to get it cut. In order to donate one’s hair it is required to send strands at least ten inches long, and although my hair was long and lovely, it was that long. But I was determined. So when my friend, holding a pre- bundled bunch of hair and  showing me with her fingers exactly how much of my hair was coming off, asked me if I was sure I just said ‘yes’ and closed my eyes. When she finished I put my hand up to feel my head and met only air. My head felt light, I felt different. I looked in the mirror and had to check twice to believe I was looking at myself. All my hair was gone.

For the next week or so I received a million different comments on my new style, some appalled and others ecstatic. Honestly, it did take me a couple days to get used to it myself, but by the third day I realized that, nearly by accident, I had made the decision that helped me see what I looked like, the image that reflected who I was and my personality the best.

Who we are, our intrinsic ‘I’ that makes us beautifully unique isn’t something that we create, rather it is discovered over a lifetime of experience. I figure that if everyone was themselves, their true selves rather than the images we project to others, it would be a helluva lot easier to get on in this world. You are wonderful, why make it harder for others to see that by projecting an image that, somehow, the world has generally agreed is cool or acceptable?

Because of this experience, and others like it, I began to try and put aside my self-image or the opinions of others when making decisions by not really thinking too hard about them. It’s not really a perfect system and it has gotten me into a sticky situation or two, but I wouldn’t exchange that for what I have now…an amazing haircut!

Where ever you are, I’ll send you a bit of our 58 degree (Fahrenheit) weather from here in Spain to keep you warm this week. Have a great week.

Kika