Cut While Shaving

This morning I cut myself shaving...yes...a 33-year-old man
cut himself shaving. It's not like I'm a novice to this art of
image enhancement but alas, the razor parted the skin on
the lower right side of my jaw, adjacent to my chin, making
my goatee uniquely shaped (I think I like it!). As soon
as it happened I knew, just as anyone knows because I felt it.
I felt the razor glide across my skin, removing stubble and
skin in one even stroke.

As I continued shaving (because what
man actually stops shaving because he has cut himself),
my mind raced back to the beginning of my shaving process,
retracing the steps I took, and then analyzing the technique
I chose to employ to alleviate my face of the community of
black tops that began to emerge last night. I immediately
recognized the flaw of implementation. My flaw is one that is not
uncommon to us, men and women, who choose to remove
the shade from our skin...I pressed too hard with the razor.

Once I felt my skin part, my technique change and I began
to pay closer attention to my stroke, the strength I used to press
the blade upon my skin, and my intentions for this activity. I bring
up my intention because no one plans or expects to cut themselves.
True, it doesn't surprise the trimmers of the world when
it occurs* but the feelings are still the same when it does happen...
discomfort, disappointment, concern, peace in clarity, and if the cut is
deep enough, sometimes we feel pain.

I write all of this to say that there are times in our lives that we
attempt to shave, trim or plainly cut things, thoughts or people
out of our lives. Once we begin, we choose our tool of choice--some
of us use a single blade while others enjoy two or more blades with
a moisturizing strip (I'm a double blade with strip man myself).
Then, we use our tool of choice and the process appears relatively
simple and pleasant...until...we get cut or we cut ourselves...
meaning we have something happen that is unexpected
(possibly predictable because we know it can happen*)
and we must immediately adjust our technique by
analyzing our technique and intent of implementation. While we
reassess, we can and should continue even though there may be
discomfort, concern, disappointment, and sometimes pain. Regardless
of the initial feelings, there is always a peace in clarity that arrives
and we are better people for the experience.

We shave or cut things, thoughts or people out of our lives because
we know it's what we need in order to be happy and content with
ourselves. Everyone should be at peace with themselves and sometimes
the only way to do that is to clear the shaded areas of our lives.