I am a very impulsive person. It’s kind of a problem. It’s probably the reason why I kept changing my major and minors so much. It’s also probably half of the reason why I procrastinate so much because why finish that assignment when you could start a completely new knitting project while binge-watching something completely random on Netflix?
But, on the other hand, sometimes your hair looks really nice as a result.
On this recent Tuesday evening into early Wednesday morn, I came back to my dorm at the sweet hour of 12AM and decided “Hey, my bangs are too long. I should just cut all of my hair off!” So I took out my crafting scissors (because my impulsiveness can not wait for buying cutting shears) and started chopping away. I also shaved the back of my head using a razor and shampoo because hey, I always wanted an undercut and the back is kind of messed up as a result of my impulsiveness so why not? I personally think that I went too short with my hair, but so far a lot of people have complimented me on my hair, saying that it looks great.
Truth be told, most of my hair choices are the result of my impulsive habits and my own cuttery skills.
Being impulsive definitely has its drawbacks though, such as for example, really poor hair choices. When I first started dying my hair unnatural colors, I was too excited to wait to bleach my hair, so the first time I went blonde had…mixed results…quite literally, actually. The lifting of the color was very patchy, and some sections of my hair were still my natural light brown instead of the target blonde. Luckily, the next day my friend (and fellow HerCampus writer) Kate offered to help me re-bleach my hair so that the pink dye I bought would really stand out.
Sometimes being impulsive helps you get stuff done, even productive stuff. I can sit down an complete a new crafting pretty quickly because of my impulsiveness. I can easily set my mind to assignments and things I’m interested in, well, certain things, that is. I highly doubt I’d ever impulsively do math homework or study for a test that I’ve been dreading.
In a way, college is when you can be impulsive, about some things that is. If you want to give yourself an undercut at 12:30 AM or badly dye your hair pink, you can do it now, because when you’re a 30-year-old and working a full time office job, your employer probably isn’t going to be on board. Impulsiveness is almost like being spontaneous, only with a bad connotation. You can do random, crazy stuff in college. As long as you’re not hurting yourself or anyone else, who cares if you cut off all your hair in the middle of the night or completely change your entire wardrobe in a weekend? This is the time to make quick changes and random decisions in your life.
Like a lot of character traits, being impulsive can be good and bad. It’s about balance. You just have to learn to cope with the bad parts and control it. Meanwhile, you wow everyone else with with 12:30 AM hair-cutting and back-of-the-head shaving skills.
So to my fellow impulsive sisters, brothers, and siblings of neither binary gender: rock on with your impulsive selves.