My Bald Head’s a Symbol

Alright that heading is a bit of an odd one, but give me a chance to try and explain it.

Me in my prime short baldness

Quite often I find that I get comments about my bald head, a lot of the standard stuff like the glare people get on the screen during Teams meetings, do I shampoo my head and then my face or wash my face and then my head… am I always having a good or bad hair day, just the same sort of stuff. But there is one thing that I always find interesting when people say it to me, “oh you’ve had a hair cut”.

Now being challenged in the hair department like I am there isn’t too much that can happen with my hair, its either short bald, bald or slightly less bald, but it’s the fact that people notice that there are times when I am somewhere along this spectrum means that they take notice, which is nice, but after a recent discussion with some colleagues it made me realise that it’s a symbol for how I am currently tracking from a wellbeing perspective. Am I in control of myself enough that I have taken five minutes from my day to maintain my short hair approach?

I didn’t really think much of it until I had started to read the book “Make your bed”. I won’t ruin the book for anyone that hasn’t read it but as you can probably tell by the title, it’s about making your bed. But it’s more than just about making your bed it’s about what that means from a standards perspective. Have you done it? Have you done it well? Seems pretty simple but how many times have you just gotten out of bed and not made it, when it really only takes a few minutes to do, and if you have done it, have you done it properly and not half assed. This was a pretty simple take on the concept but it definitely did start to make me think, it would only take me about 2 minutes every day to quickly touch up my hair and stay on top of it rather than not do it and after a week have to spend more time, or even money getting back to a very short length.

I didn’t really think about it too much until I was talking to some colleagues and I shared my view that I think possibly when I’m not in control of myself I let myself slip and the small things like cutting my hair I don’t stay on top of, and that probably means that I am dropping the ball in a few other areas as well. To my surprise they kind of agreed, some of them were able to reflect that they too probably had symbols of not being entirely in control of yourself, we all had a laugh and a joke, but the next time they complimented me on my freshly shaved head I was able to respond back about how positive I was feeling and that I had a strong feeling of self control.

And that was it, my bald head is a symbol of me being in a positive state of mind, being balanced and in control. What’s your symbol?

Michael