Tag: self-confidence

Why I Buzzed Part of My Head

Alex Matsuo

A few weeks ago, I did something very daring.  I buzzed about a quarter of my head.  I did this a few weeks ago and I’m finally getting around to posting about it.  The day I got it done, I was being a bit of a tease by saying, “Shaving my head!”

Of course, after saying that, people were freaking out.  I got interesting responses and there were a few that surprised me.  Those who I thought would disapprove were cheering me on, while others who I thought wouldn’t care or would be somewhat supportive, were aghast.  I sort of felt like a troll in the end when I only shaved a part of my head, but it’s still a major change.

I’ve always been known for my full head of hair and my hair color.  Because of the hair color thing, I’ve never dyed my hair, and the closest chemical that my hair has been exposed to is a shine treatment that I got for myself for graduation.

So on that note, my abilities to do anything really crazy with my hair have always been limited.  My mother wouldn’t even let me do the colored hairspray when I was a kid in fear that I would damage my hair color.  Same thing went for temporary hair dye.  Never been able to do it.  Do I feel like I’m missing out on something by never dying my hair?  Eh…sometimes.  I get jealous of those who can dye their hair black with bold colors like pink or blue as highlights.  I guess that tells you what kind of style I’m into.

But anyway, when I told my mother that I wanted to shave a part of my head, she looked at me and just simply asked, “Why?”  And for the first time, I was able to give an answer that made sense and was logical almost immediately.  I said, “Because it’s something I want to do for me.”

This was something that I wanted to do for myself.  So often I watched other people do this same hairstyle and I always thought about how cool that looked.  It was so edgy, and it was a statement of self-independence and not caring about what others think.  And on the plus side, it would be easy to hide at work since all I need to do is flip the hair over.

But I’m also aware of what people may think of me with part of my hair gone.  They will probably see me as a punk, a hippie, a crazy kid, unprofessional, doesn’t give a f*ck about what society thinks of me (partially true), and maybe a crazy hooligan.  But they only see me for a moment.  They don’t see me as my friends and family see me.  They don’t see the person with the full-time job and a Master’s degree.  But you know what? That’s okay.

Living with the haircut for two weeks now has taught me a lot about myself.  For one, I feel like I’m myself.  I feel like I’ve finally fallen into my own element and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I know myself.  I feel so much more confident and happy with my appearance.  Not to mention, maintenance is so much easier and my head and neck don’t get quite as hot and greasy like they used to.  And straightening my hair only takes a fraction of the time it used to.  This is something that I’m so glad I did and I’ll hang on to this haircut for a while.  I might even buzz more off now that I know this is something I like.  This was a huge step for me, because I really was afraid that it would look terrible, but in the end, I love it.

Take risks.  Risk failure.  If you fail, you fail.  But you’ll never know unless you try.

Haters Gonna Hate

Alex Matsuo

This has been a strange week.

My week started with the most incredible high.  But with every high, I suppose the universe needed to balance me out.

This week, I’ve dealt with a lot of…haters.  This sounds so egotistical of me, and I really don’t want to mean it like it’s sounding.  But I’ve been dealing with a lot of haters who’ve held nothing back in calling me out.  It’s new to me.  Well, at least in large numbers.  Actually, it’s just new-ish.  I know the reason why I’m dealing with it, it’s because of my associations with a particular group of people.  People tell me it’s because “such-n-such” is jealous, blah, blah, blah.  I’ve always been pretty good at distancing myself from people I anticipate I may not get along with, or I detect that they may be jerks.  But there’s always a few that sneak in.

In my “normal” life, I get along with everyone.  Even if I’m not fond of someone, or someone isn’t fond of me, there’s still mutual respect.  The community I associate with at home is wonderful.  It’s professional, supportive, and we all have a degree of respect for each other.  Then I go home and join my “other life” and it seems to be the polar opposite.  While I love the work I get to do with this group, sometimes dealing with people who don’t like me can wear on my mind.  I don’t care if people like me or not, it’s figuring out how to respond when they make it extremely clear and make sure that you know they don’t like you.  And I feel that because of my associations, and the fact I’m not able to verbally bitchslap people the way I used to, these people are taking advantage of that and basically think they can take a dump on my desk and get away with it.

There are two groups.  The first group contains people that I’m not emotionally connected to, and they don’t hold back in making complete asses of themselves and target you for making lighthearted commentary on something as simple as a Facebook status.  Those don’t get to me as much as they amuse me for the most part.

I was told to not ever write about it because it would show the “haters” that they got to me.  But to be perfectly honest…the second group gets to me sometimes.  Especially when it’s someone who you had tremendous respect for, and you get accused of something that you didn’t do, and they don’t give you any help or time of day to explain to you what exactly you did wrong.  It’s hard.  And as much as I wanted to investigate, I have to accept that fact that if the other person really gave a shit about me, they would’ve told me what was going on.  Instead of one day, we’re friends, and the next day, I’m gone from a friends list.  Majority of people in my life know that the one thing I cannot stand is being accused of something that I didn’t do.  I own up to my mistakes, but when I don’t know what I’m supposed to own up to, and therefore rejected for doing something that I’ve never been made privy to, it hurts.  A lot.  I can only cry and mourn over the loss of the friendship for so long before I can wash my hands of the issue and simply move on with my life.  While I know things that were told to me that supposedly came from my former friend in question, I decided to hold it in.  I tend to try to let rumors and gossip die with me.  I hate bringing up unnecessary drama, especially if it only upsets the person.

I mean…look at it this way:

“Hey Alan, I heard from Brad that he heard from Chris that you were telling him about this one thing that I said…” See where things can get lost?  Would it be worth to upset Alan like that when the rumors are coming from second, third and fourth parties?

So dealing with haters.  Dealing with rumors.  Dealing with gossip.  I have to learn how to let it go.  I also need to come to terms with letting go the friendships that have ended.  I have turned into a person that doesn’t trust anyone, except maybe a few close friends.  It stinks, and I’ve become quite cynical of people and their intentions of wanting to befriend me.  People are going to talk shit because you’re present.  They know who you are and for whatever reason they don’t like you, they’ll talk shit.  It’s the way of the game.  I was basically broken last week from the loss of a friendship that I treasured.  But what doesn’t break you, makes you stronger.

And while haters are going to hate, I’m going to enjoy life.  I’m going to wake up in the morning and take a big whiff of the successes I’ve achieved because I’ve worked my ass off to get them.  I’m no longer going to be ashamed or self-conscious of my accomplishments and apologize for being who I am because it offends someone.  Why does anyone have to be knocked down so that someone else can feel better?  Why even give that negative person acknowledgement?

So, I’m back.  I’m ready to dive back into life and take the bull by the horns.  And if you don’t like it, go ahead and try to knock me down a peg.  You’re only going to look like an ass.  Unfortunately now, I can’t care anymore.  I won’t acknowledge it anymore.  I’ve been reminded that life’s too short to focus on that or even give it a glance anymore.

To all the haters out there, thank you.

Thank you for making my backbone stronger than it ever has been in my life.

*Photo Credit: “Swimming in Broken Mirrors”, self-portrait by Caryn Drextal