Why I shave my head for charity

It’s a chaotic world we live in today. So many things compete for our time and attention. Most of us have jobs we have to get to everyday. If you are one of the lucky ones, you enjoy your job, so your time there isn’t a burden. Or as much of one. But there are those jobs that are difficult and, given a choice, we wouldn’t do whether it’s because of a difficult boss or a heightened sense of importance or responsibility. And then there are the things that we have to juggle with those jobs. Relationships, whether they be with significant others, children, or family, can suffer from a lack of attention. There all the news sources out there – a ton more than I had as a kid – telling us lies and truth and sometimes a little of both. We can get news on our phones, on our TVs, and on our computers. It seems there isn’t a corner of the world we can’t go to where we won’t see the news story of the day. And what a story of the day it is: a natural disaster, a disgraced leader, a war that’s been going on for what seems like decades. There doesn’t seem to a continent we can turn to that something isn’t happening that affects this ever-shrinking world. Then, in between all those news stories, we have advertisements that tell us what to do to look just that much better. Darkening our skin, make it more supple, brightening those teeth, lightening the hair, darkening the hair, covering the grey, lose a few pounds, lose a lot of pounds, get better cheekbones, get fuller lips, smooth out those wrinkles, wear the right clothes, wear the clothes everyone else is wearing, wear the clothes that confirm your individuality, buy the right car, buy a faster car, buy a bigger car, buy a house, buy a better house, buy a bigger house, take vitamins, take the right vitamins, take a supplement, boost your libido, boost your workout, grow hair, get hair. We face an onslaught of advertising that tries to convince of one thing: whatever you have now, you can get something better. We move through our lives, driving our cars, planning our careers, managing our relationships, looking towards the future. And that’s when it happens: the unthinkable. It can and will be different for everyone: a car accident, getting fired, a loved one getting sick. It’s the one thing that happens that casts a light over everything else we do. And in those shadows we see how much effort and energy we gave things that, in an instant, mean almost nothing. They mean nothing in the context of what we now have to deal with. I shave my head to remind myself of that. To remind myself every day that there are things out there under my control – how I treat people, how I drive, the hundred small decisions I make every day – and there are those things I do not control. It can be overwhelming, this world of ours, with its 24-hour news cycle, games on phones and on-demand entertainment. It can be distracting, with cars that park themselves, heat the seats and protect us like tanks. It can be exhausting, having kids and a spouse and a job. I shave my head to remind me to every once-in-awhile stop, look around, and just breathe.