I’ve never been a particularly impulsive person. I’m prone to overthinking and to the occasional anxious doom spiral of what am I doing with my life? You know that old saying measure twice cut once? I’m more of a measure at least seven times, and then maybe maybe you can cut.
But due to some new circumstances in my life (namely the upcoming stress of finals week, the start of track season, and a bit of a rough patch with boys) I’ve decided to give in to a few of the impulsive thoughts in my head. Nothing too drastic, just chopping off a few inches of my hair and finally sending that email to book that appointment for that tattoo that I’ve always wanted. Yet I’ve found myself reconsidering the way I approach other things in my life.
Sometimes doing the impulsive thing is fun, I might even go as far as to say it’s satisfying. Those decisions prove to myself that I have control over my own life. We may live on a giant rock hurtling through space at a million miles an hour, but I control what I do on our magnificent floating rock. There’s something satisfying about taking advantage of the temporary nature of our lives and embracing the idea that all things come to pass. Finals will eventually be over, your hair will eventually grow back, and anything embarrassing that happens along the way will soon fade to a distant and completely forgotten memory.
Isn’t that what college is for anyways? To make all the stories you tell your friends in ten or twenty years? Certain things are permanent, like how you treat the people you interact with and the habits you form as a teenager, but the haircut I get when I’m 19? It’ll be memorialized in pictures and that’s about it. So a word on impulsivity: yes. If not now, when will you ever?