Good intentions won’t fix your bad hair day or your life.

I want to tell you a little story to illustrate good intentions. Good intentions won’t fix your life. You might be thinking that’s a simple statement, but why do you keep trying so hard then? If it was so easy, I wouldn’t be writing this article, and you wouldn’t be reading it. You can also gain self confidence by realizing you are imperfect. It’s true.

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The bad hair day.

Let’s face it, we all have bad hair days, especially me, because I have a mountain of curly hair. Many times my hair doesn’t cooperate, and I’ve had my fair share of bad outcomes. I want to look my best though so I make an effort. I don’t think that’s so uncommon or wrong. It’s human nature to want to look our best.

Anyway, my hair is always out of control in the mornings and sometimes all the hair products in the world aren’t going to right the wrongs that happened to it while I slept.

So that means I’m going to fix it. I have the best intentions here, which are obviously to have a good hair day. I’ll add a little water to smooth it down. Then I’ll think, ‘some gel would really fix this frizz,’ so I lather up my hands with gel and scrunch up the curls again. Then that makes my hair crunchy, which was great in the 80s, but not in 2021, so I use another product to take out the crunch and the frizz.

Eventually, all I’ve done is coated my hair in water and greasy conditioning hair products. When I look at all the work I’ve created, and the extra time that it took, my hair usually looks just as out of control in the first place, with a layer of greasy chemicals on top of the crunch and frizz.

Then I will walk out the door with my imperfect, greasy, frizzy, crunchy, mountain of hair and I will hate it all day and I wonder what people are thinking. In reality, people probably are thinking my hair looks just the same as it did the day before. I’m my own worst critic, that’s for certain, and a little egotistical too.

I had good intentions for my hair, obviously. Because of that, I wanted and willed and gelled and conditioned my hair to go right. The time and effort was spent because I had good intentions and I wanted to work on it. It’s not always going to be my best hair day, even though I intend for it to be otherwise and no matter what I do.

When I decided to stop trying to attain perfection in my life, my intentions didn’t change. The only thing that changed was my expectation for the outcome of my actions.

I believe all reasonable people have good intentions. Unless you are a sociopath, in which case, you probably wouldn’t be reading this, you want things to go well in your life. You don’t want people to hurt, and you don’t want to do things to hurt yourself or others. But I’ve got news for you. We will do those things anyway. I have hurt myself and others sometimes, and I’ve also been negatively affected by screw ups that are a product of life’s mysterious and frustrating ways. The idea that I could somehow control any of those circumstances with trying to make things turn out is ridiculous. My intentions were still good, and that has never changed.

All that working toward having a perfect life did for me is to keep me stuck in trying to continue to fix things and working harder. My life got covered in that same layer of greasy chemicals that happens when I overdo it with my hair. Layer upon layer of crap, and really no solutions. Once I finally let go, and realized that bad things will happen, despite my good intentions and my willpower, it gave me a new perspective. I was able to disengage from the outcome and just enjoy the process of life unfolding. That’s available for you too. Have good intentions, work diligently, and let go of the outcome of your work.

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