Someone asked me today if I were “letting myself go gray.” I detected a note of incredulity in her question, but maybe I was being defensive.
It all started with a blowsy woman I knew briefly awhile back. She was in her late 40s and had carefully foiled blonde hair. It seemed to me that she was trying very hard to look like a younger woman. Watching her, I decided that I don’t want to try that hard.
It took a while to act on, though. My friends grew quite bored with the question.
What I finally came to was that I care a lot about authenticity, and dying my hair a different color to look 10 years younger feels pretty inauthentic. (To me – absolutely no judgment on you – you look great!)
There was also a contradiction I couldn’t reconcile: I am so careful to eat organic foods; why would I then to slather my scalp – next to my brain for gods’ sakes — with horrible chemicals that give me a headache for the rest of the day?
And the expense. Hundreds of dollars a year. And hours and hours of time. All spent just to do again.
I still get my eyebrows waxed, though. So I’m not really letting myself go. Am I?
Maximize Your Career in Your Current Organization
From a University of Washington Professional and Continuing Education webinar: Prospective clients sometimes ask me how I have the credibility to coach senior executives in industries I know nothing about. Challenging question, right? So I have a choice here: I can answer in a way that risks sounding defensive, talking about my experience and my degrees. I like to do something really unexpected instead.
I like to talk about knots.
