Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Hair Grows Back: Help with Decision-Making

Just got my every-six-weeks-or-so trim and it made me think of the hesitation many of us have about making radical recreational hair changes.

For decades, I had long straight hair. It was a sort of signature. After a couple of years thinking about it, I got it cut to chin-length; and this was before advancing age might have inspired me to make this move.

One of my buddies kept saying to me back then: "It's just hair. It'll grow back."

This morning I started wondering how many decisions I ponder lengthily actually fall into the no-big-deal-it's-only-hair category, which is to say: have fairly brief consequences even if the choice goes bad.

I remember torment over deciding whether to take another year of French in ninth grade. Definitely a haircut decision. I've seen people go into stall mode over which book to write next. One of the books would have been well underway in the time spent deciding.

On the other hand, my choice of colleges ultimately affected where I would live and who I would marry, among other things.

It's almost never possible to have all the data for a decision.

One small test is to ask: is it just hair? will it grow back?



Add to del.icio.us - Stumble It! - Subscribe to this feed - Digg it