UPLIFT-12

How I Helped Myself

I will resume posting new chapters from Flawed Genius September 7, 2025.

Chapter Twenty-Seven
EAR HAIRS
Grooming Communicates

This chapter is for men. Women amaze me with the variety of looks they have. How a woman decides what to wear to look a certain way is a mystery to me.

If you are a man, pay attention. Would you wear a suit and tie to play golf? Probably not. Would you wear a suit and tie to court if you were on trial? Probably yes.

Perhaps you care little about what you look like because you're not concerned with what people think. Rising above public opinion can be liberating if you don't sabotage yourself.

Do you enjoy criticizing others' appearance? Be careful; some people put others down trying to build themselves up. This approach creates problems without accomplishing anything.

Regardless of our self-perception, our appearance conveys something about us. Much of the quality of our lives depends on what we communicate. Communicate to your employer how much you dislike him, and you will likely be out of a job before finding another one. Fail to tell your sweetheart how much you love her, and your relationship will suffer.

Rock singers and accountants do not dress the same. If either dressed like the other when looking for work, both would be less likely to be hired.

Grooming cannot replace substance, but it can hide it. You are what you are, but dress in a black garbage sack, and few people will see the real you. What you are communicating is essential in your life. Taking care with your grooming can smooth rough passages and speed your ascent up whatever ladder you are climbing.

When the hair on top of my head went south, unknown to me, much of it landed in my ears. Hairy clumps sprouted in all the wrong places. Jane, my then-girlfriend, broke the news to me. We had been intimate for two weekends. On Sunday morning, Jane snuggled against me and said, "Mind if I trim your ear hair?"

"Ear hair? What ear hair?" I reached up to my left ear. "Oh. That hair." I played with the fuzzy stuff for a minute, then said, "Sure, if you want to." I can imagine Jane holding her breath, wondering what she would do if I refused.

When Jane and I broke up, I moved to Hawaii. Too shy to ask a new barber to trim my ears, I struggled alone. Old Caucasian men have hairy ears. I was not yet forty. Remembering my sister plucking her eyebrows, I got my pliers. I ripped out a hairy clump and gasped at how much it hurt. Next, I tried shaving my ears—another mistake. I wore band-aids for two days.

In a little catalog that came in the mail, I saw advertised a small instrument for trimming nose hairs. I ordered it. By the time the device arrived, my ears were noticeably overgrown. The little trimmer was made of stainless steel and looked efficient. Luckily, I did not then have a problem with nose hair, but since the trimmer was designed for that purpose, I decided to test it before pushing its design envelope.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I put the trimmer into one nostril like an inhaler. I pushed the lever, spinning the cutting cylinder inside its housing. The trimmer jammed, and pain stabbed into my nose. As I jumped, the steel housing jerked from my hand, causing more pain. For a moment, I watched as this grooming aid from hell swung wildly under my nose. Looking in the mirror complicated my reflexes, but I finally grabbed the little devil and ripped it out. Tears came to my eyes. I must have a low pain tolerance.

I tore apart the trimmer. The design was good, but the blade was dull. Not about to put it near my ears, I threw it away.

My solution to unwanted ear hairs? I conquered my shyness about asking for a trim. With much less hair on top, requesting the extra work was easy to rationalize.

Paying attention to your ear hair, or any aspect of your appearance that may not reflect your true self, can open up new pathways in your life.

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