It’s overcast and chilly in New York today, and I just woke up from a nap. Nothing like falling asleep on the couch on a Sunday afternoon.
Anytime I take a nap, I’m careful not to let myself sleep too long. Not because there’s anything wrong with doing so, but because the mental toll that sleeping longer than 30 minutes takes on me is inconvenient. I end up spending just as long recovering from the nap as I did sleeping: reminding myself where I am, convincing myself my dreams were not real, and jumpstarting my motor functions enough to pull myself out from between couch cushions. Like I said, inconvenient.
This particular Sunday, I slept for over an hour. I’m still a bit slack-jawed as I sit at my desk, writing this note to all of you. I know that AP Calc test I dreamed about isn’t real, but I still have this pesky newsletter to write, and I’ve stubbornly set my mind on getting in a long run before the end of the night. Sunday nap + looming deadlines – remaining hours in the day = nightmare.
So I’ve decided to tell a personal story that I’ve been thinking a lot about since yesterday.
I’ve always been embarrassingly self-conscious about my haircut. I’ve felt pits in my stomach and hot flashes of anxiety more often during haircuts than I have during public speaking. In the chair, I am constantly telling myself to unclench my jaw and smile, if only to seem like less of a psycho to my barber. I come out sweaty no matter what I do, having spent the hour under a state of biological duress. My caveman body has no idea that the danger it’s been preparing for is not a tiger but a bi-monthly trim. A two on the sides, blended into scissors on top. Scary, scary stuff.
I know that I am irrational about this. If I leave my helmet at home when I go out on my bike, the worst thing that will happen is I crack my skull and die. A pretty horrible outcome. But the downside from a bad haircut is what? Some jokes from friends? Maybe someone thinking you’re unattractive or unprofessional? And that’s giving haircuts more credit than they probably deserve. As Tim Urban says, “no one really cares that much about what you’re doing. People are highly self-absorbed.” Add to that the fact that hair grows back.
But still I’ve agonized over them. I’ve gone back to the barber later the same day to fix something totally meaningless, like a slightly unequal sideburn. I’ve trimmed my own hair after coming home from a haircut, only to make things worse and end up going back, anyway. I’ve been so pissed about my hair that I buzzed it all off, teaching myself in the process that impulsivity and clippers do not mix. Ask either of my parents and they will probably say that my attitude towards my hair caused them more concern than any other part of my childhood. I was nuts.
Maybe some of you relate. Or maybe you’re reading this wondering, like the other 50% of my own brain, how I could waste so much mental space on something as inconsequential as a haircut. Particularly when the reality is that, at any given moment in my life, I’ve oscillated between variations of a short, dark brown hairstyle. We’re not talking bleach blonde mohawks here, or anything truly brave. But no matter how ridiculous it has seemed, I’ve never been able to put haircuts back where they belong, in the same category as clipping my nails or brushing my teeth.
Or at least not before I found Mr. Money Mustache.
Mr. Money Mustache (MMM to his readers) is a personal finance blogger who argues that our spending habits as a society are making us unhappy and preventing us from spending our days how we really want to spend them. It’s compelling stuff and I’d highly recommend a read.
But the reason I bring up Mr. Money Mustache is not because of his financial philosophy. It’s because of a post he wrote titled Get Rich With: The Universal Men’s Grooming Device:
“Imagine a device so advanced that it can keep any boy or man, from birth to beyond age 100, looking trim, clean and handsome for life. It can sculpt, trim, shape, or completely remove any hair on your body. It will save you hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours of time EVERY YEAR, forever. Over thirty thousand dollars over a lifetime. But yet this device costs less than $50.00.”
Cut my own hair. I had never really thought about it, beyond the handful of times I’d used my dog’s clippers on myself, or stood in front of a mirror snipping hairs with a shaky hand. I would take responsibility for my grooming, do an average job at best, and put haircuts back in their place. MMM’s post felt like a personal challenge, a rephrasing of the quote by Marcus Aurelius, the famous Stoic:
“Ask, ‘Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?’ You’ll be embarrassed to answer.”
If I wasn’t brave enough to cut my own hair – where the worst case outcome was waiting a few weeks for it to regrow – then I wasn’t very brave at all.
So that’s what I’ve been doing since sometime in July. It’s been a messy process, and has led to some haircuts I’ve been proud of and some that I have not. Mostly I’ve done an alright job. A short brown hairstyle. Maybe a poorly blended spot in back where it’s obvious I either cut my own hair or have an incompetent barber. But I’ve survived.
Yesterday, while giving myself a routine cut, I found this video on MMM’s Youtube channel. His guide to giving yourself a low maintenance trim with nothing but clippers. I was intrigued. I had become my own barber, but in the process actually added to the time my haircuts were taking, and I needed to simplify. It is not easy to scissor cut your own hair, let me tell you.
I’ll admit that I was pretty nervous. I had no idea what it would look like on me, particularly with a hairline that has been slowly receding up my forehead. Clippers are frightening things. I still remembered the impulsive buzzcuts.
But I did it. The haircut took no time at all. It’s low maintenance and I like it.
So why do I tell this story? Maybe nap hangovers make me particularly self-indulgent. But I also think it says something important about fear, that’s best summarized by a Jamie Foxx quote: “What’s on the other side of fear? Nothing.”
There’s a video that went viral back in high school of a girl who was terrified of pickles. Everyone found it hysterical that a plate of pickles could make a grown woman run screaming from a room. I’ll admit, the video is pretty funny.
We’re able to spot such an extreme example for what it is. “Just eat a pickle!” we all want to shout. It’s not that bad! There’s nothing on the other side of your fear.
But the pickle lady is not alone. We all have things that we’re afraid of to our own detriment. And while fear serves an important purpose, it needs to be challenged. What is it that I’m really afraid of? What’s the worst than can happen?
Everyone has their own version of just eat a pickle. One of mine was my haircut. And the only way to the other side of that fear is to pick up the clippers.
– Emmett
Recent Posts:
The Truth Is in the Data Part Two (Blog, 4 min)
What I’m Reading:
Why Big Companies Squander Brilliant Ideas – Tim Hartford
“Dominant organisations are prone to stumble when the new technology requires a new organisational structure. An innovation might be radical but, if it fits the structure that already existed, an incumbent firm has a good chance of carrying its lead from the old world to the new.”
100 (Short) Rules for a Better Life – Ryan Holiday
One more list – and a good one.
Fear Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month – Tim Ferriss
“I realized that on a scale of 1–10, 1 being nothing and 10 being permanently life-changing, my so-called worst-case scenario might have a temporary impact of 3 or 4. I believe this is true of most people and most would-be ‘holy sh*t, my life is over’ disasters.”
What I’m Listening To:
Steven Pressfield on the Artist’s Journey – Tim Ferriss Show
“One of the reasons I like to go to the gym early or do something physical early is because I’m trying to build up a little successes so that by the time I get to sit down at the page, I feel like I’ve got some momentum going.”
Tom Brady – Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard