A Life Lesson from Shaving

Recently, I had a life-changing experience: I shaved correctly for the first time. To clarify, I am a 19-year-old male. I've been shaving since I was in sixth grade, so for maybe seven or eight years. That's a long time to shave incorrectly. That's a real long time to shave incorrectly. Let me describe my experiences and what I've learned from them.

For such a long time, when I would use a razor, I would never use enough shaving cream. I didn't know I wasn't using enough shaving cream, I just thought that getting nicked was an unavoidable fact of life. I thought razor bumps were a fact of life. I began to use an electric shaver exclusively for several years, so I never had the opportunity to refine my technique.

The other day, I finally shaved correctly. As I pressed the button on the top of the can of shaving cream, I thought "Whoa there, that's way too much!" It was the first time in a while that I had shaved using a razor and shaving cream. Rather than wiping some of the shaving cream from my hand, I applied all of it to my face, perhaps twice as much as I normally would. As I shaved, the light bulbs began to go off. I realized that this, this was how men were supposed to shave. We weren't born to skimp on shaving cream. We were supposed to use as much as we darn well pleased. And I shaved. And I was smooth. And I did not bleed. And I did not bump. And it was good.

As I thought about it more, I realized how the lesson I learned from this experience could be applied to other situations. I thought I knew how to shave. I thought that negative effects such as nicks and bumps were unavoidable. I operated in the same mindset, never questioning my abilities or preconceptions.

On a regular basis, most people go through life without thinking about what they're doing, how they're doing it, or why they're doing it. When we take time to reflect and honestly evaluate our skills and reasoning, we find that there are things that we could do better and ways to be more efficient or produce a better product. From this point on, I'm going to try to be more reflective with respect to the manner in which I approach problems and I'm going to try to be cautious when assuming that certain outcomes are inevitable. The solution may be simpler than I think.