agm

I’ve heard the above statement more times in my life than I can remember. The ironic thing is that about 10 years ago, I heard the opposite “You should wear your hair up”. I had a bob cut back then and everyone convinced me it was better to grow my hair out and wear my hair up. Hair out. Hair up. Hair down. Hair out? What is this madness. It wasn’t long after I started wearing it up that the onslaught of “You should wear it down!” started. It hasn’t stopped despite my many explanations that this is how my hair feels the most comfortable and that I’m an active person who likes to wear my hair up. It’s only met with reasons why wearing one’s hair down can be so comfortable and how it’s  “so easy” to put your hair back up when you need to. The thing is it’s not easy for me to switch between up and down. It’s actually a pain in my ass because my hair is really thick and because, frankly, it’s just not something I want to even worry about.

I’ve always been a minimalist and, for me, creating defaults for certain aspects of my life has freed me up to focus on more important things like making sure I’m eating healthy and exercising. I try to turn as many things into habits as possible so those more mentally taxing things can have as much of my brain power as possible given to them.

It also baffles me how people feel entitled to tell me what to do with my hair. It’s on my head after all – it’s literally attached to me. It’s part of who I am. Any other part of one’s body would be considered rude, right? I can’t think of a time when I have ever told someone else what they should do with their body.

My girlfriend and I have gotten into this argument many a time – she has big and beautiful curls so when she tells me to “pleaseeee wear your hair down” I retort with “pleaseeee straighten your hair”. She argues it’s easier for me to put it down than for her to straighten it whereas I argue that it’s the principle of it that matters.  In either case, the other person is asking for the other to change something about them that makes them feel comfortable and that causes the least amount of stress.

I won’t rant for too long but if you ask me to put my hair down, you might get directed to this post. I like my hair the way it is. I don’t spend much time thinking about it and I don’t really care about what it looks like. I don’t pass judgment on those who DO care about what their hair looks like either. That’s our right as individuals – to have differences of opinions and to live our lives as we want to.