Maybe it’s getting older, but I’ve begun to appreciate going to get a haircut a lot more over the last few years. There’s nothing quite like a fresh cut and appreciating how good it looks (at least until I get my hands on it), but that’s not the only reason it’s refreshing.
Working from home is great. On a day like today, when the snow is falling and school is cancelled, my commute is the same as it always is – down a flight of stairs in my slippers with a fresh cup of coffee. No need to cancel a bunch of plans because the kid is staying home today. No rush to get outside and shovel or clear the stairs.
However, it’s not all pizza, unicorns, and afternoon naps.
The trouble with working from home is my office mates are limited to pets who don’t tend to say much and my communication with other people is clients through email and the occasional text from a friend. Going to get a haircut is the perfect excuse for me to get out of my house and actually interact with other human beings. It’s crazy, I know, but it’s good sometimes.
It’s also one of the reasons I ditched generic chain haircutting joints several years ago. Besides the upside being a mediocre cut and the downside being two weeks of hat time, it was the conversational equivalent of coffee drive thru chatter. Going to an actual barbershop changed all that because… well… it’s the same people every time. And they have no problem doling out harassment and jokes. It’s like I remember growing up when my Dad would take me to get a cut on a Saturday morning.
Has it changed my life? Maybe not in a significant enough way to warrant my own after school special (do they still make those?), but it’s definitely bumped my quality of life a notch or two. And it’s also become part of what I’ve started referring to as my “personal infrastructure” – an expression I’m borrowing from Tim Ferriss, whom I’m sure grabbed it from someone else.
More on that another time.