This morning I had a irrational moment. You know what I'm talking about: one of those moments where you say to yourself, "did I really just think that?" I was getting dressed and I wanted to wear one particular hat with the outfit that I was wearing. It matched perfectly. The only problem was that had wore that same hat the day before! Gasp, I thought. What will people think!?!? The same hat two days in a row?!?! A little background for those of you who don't know me personally...
When I first started in the work place, my job was to do presentations at high schools. At that time I still had a very youthful look about me and since I moved from school to school, the school security would often mistake me for a student wandering the halls. To try to remedy that, I would always dress in a suit to distinguish myself from the kids. Around that same time, my fraternity chapter decide to shave their head in tribute to the Nuba tribe in Africa. After reading a book about them, we felt a certain connection with them across the ocean, backwards across the Middle Passage. So we shaved our heads. Here's the thing about hair; it protects your head! When you remove it you need to replace that protection with something and, most of the time, that comes in the form of a hat. But when you wear suits to work, you can't wear a baseball cap (or at least back then you couldn't). I bought a fedora and started wearing that. On a service project in Bloomington, Indiana one year, I picked up a black short brim from a thrift store, very Bear Bryant. That became my 'hat'. I had one and I became known as the guy in the suit and the hat because back then, I was the only young man wearing fedoras regularly in my circles. Slowly, fedoras became more and more popular and I purchased another hat. And another. And another. Pretty soon it got to the point where I am now where I never wear the same hat two days in a row. Fast forward to this morning.
That moment made me think about two lessons. Firstly, how often do we stop ourselves from doing things because we think that people will judge us for our actions when the reality is that people don't really care about that thing...or even better, they aren't even really pay attention to what we do anyway! I had to stop and remind myself that NO-ONE cares that I wear the same hat two days in a row except for the man staring back at me in the mirror. But was all do this: we all have those moments when we think that we're under FAR more scrutiny that we actually are and we let it stymie us. What could we accomplish if we did not care what people thought about our deeds? I bet Steve Jobs could answer that.
Secondly, it made me realize just how complicated we make our own lives. I used to have ONE hat. Black suit? Black hat. Blue suit? Same hat. Grey suit? Same hat. Brown suit? You guessed it: Same hat! There was no back and forth about matching. I grabbed my hat and started my day. Simple. Sometimes we need to get back to simple. In this society where many of us have sooooo many choices for EVERYTHING, we get caught up with the variety and lose precious moments of life living. Whereas my delima cost me all of 5-10 minutes of my day today, how many hours and days do we labor over other more substantial choices when they will all give us comparable satisfaction, losing precious time in the deliberation process. My fraternity Brother Gladston lives by the K.I.S.S. philosophy: Keep It Simple, Stupid. As a result, he is decisive and gets right to task at hand (which sometimes is cleaning out my refrigerator). I like that. We analyze things to death. Some of us just need to act. Really.
Well, who knew choosing a hat would make me want to write a lengthy blog (yeah ....sorry about all the words and stuff). And in case you're wondering, I am wearing that hat that I wore yesterday. Just call me Honey Badger today: I don't care!!
These are my thoughts...what are yours?
8 comments:
I would of start questioning you if you did not wear a hat. I live by a saying that CPK would say during my freshman year of college, I am who I am. Your approval is not need. Get yo Honey Badger on!
I definitely think analyzing to "death" is not the way to go - but giving things a good sturdy thought results in showing the world that you care. But it should be based on what YOU think. And we know that you think the very best of yourself. It always shows :) I'd wear more hats if it wasn't for "hat hair" *le sigh*
Groovy, I agree. I gotta be me and those who love me will accept that.
Numba, I'm not advocating for flying through life completely willy nilly but there are times that we get COMPLETELY hung up on TRYING to make a decision instead of MAKING a decision! I see it in my students all the time. I constantly tell them "less planning and more doing!"
And I think you would look awesome in hats. Don't worry about hat hair: just keep the hat on all the way through the day. I do!
I didn't know the story about how you started wearing hats. Nice to know that I will have things to learn. In other news, I'm going to do you a favor and throw away all of your hats except for one... how does that sound?
It's amazing how something seemingly small has so much history behind it...your story made me smile. I always think that someone will judge me for wearing the same shoes two days in row, but really no one cares at all. It's an expectation I put on myself...I also always feel the need to wear shoes that match my bag perfectly, again no one really cares, but I worry about it daily. So silly, but true. SMH
Don't you touch mah hats Aisha!! Mess around and see if Big Red don't come up missing! LOL
(PS I thought I told you that story. I'll have to stop retelling the old ones and tell you some more stuff you don't know about me!)
Loraine, I think the sooner we realize that no-one is 'studying' us (like my grandma would say) the easier life we'll all have. We're not celebrities and unless we're wearing something completely wacky, no-one is paying attention to us!
It's so funny you posted this blog today - because this morning I sat on my bed thinking for about 10 minutes on if I had worn a black turtleneck on Tuesday...all because I wanted to wear one today. Then I realized how silly I was being and wore the black turtleneck. If people memorize what I wear on a day to day basis, then they need to get a life :)
You make a very good point Brooke. I don't have any time to worry about other people's clothing trends! If someone knows mine, they need more work...or a hobby!
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