Here in the UK we have a saying “look before you leap“, and roughly means, before you do anything, think of the outcomes or consequences of what you are about to do.
As you can see from my photograph, I sport a beard, and I have had hair on my face since my college days.
Call me lazy, I do not have to shave every morning or night, I can get up, have a shower and off I go.
But hair grows, and I like to keep my beard trimmed, so as required, I have a machine which trims beards. Easy, as long as I remember to charge the battery, no problem.
It has a guard on it which is adjustable, allowing the cutting head to be presented to the hair at a certain distance, thus each hair will be in theory of equal length. This guard can be removed allowing the cutters remove the hair at skin level.
Having just returned from a trip abroad, when it was required that I looked presentable, thus I kept my beard trimmed using my machine, I decided to have a shower and again trim my beard before I went off to a meeting.
As soon as I started trimming the hair I realised something was amiss, something was wrong, my beard was too short, to much had been taken off. The one area I had used the trimming machine on, looked like a footpath through a field of wheat.
I looked at the trimmer, and the adjustment guide number of the guard showed “1” whereas I use the setting of “4”.
How could this be? The adjustment is hard to change, it needs effort, and I knew I would never do that.
I think somewhere there is some smiling person who knew they would have a laugh at my expense, the hotel maid, I do not know.
There was no other thing to do but trim my whole beard the same length, which reminds me of the time in
Saudi Arabia.
Whilst living in
Saudi Arabia, I had the darkest suntan you could imagine, I was black except for a white patch which never saw the light of day, never to be seen by other human eyes, that was until I had to have a medical in London requiring me to strip off. There was an endless procession of medical staff coming to see my white patch.
It was just a couple of days before I was to return to the UK for this medical examination, and I had arisen early from my bed to go for a scuba dive, that I decide to trim my beard.
Half asleep I proceeded to trim my bread. As soon as I started I knew I had left the guard off, and the cutters had removed a pathway through my beard.
There was nothing for it but to remove the whole of my beard which had been on my face for many years.
My face was half white and half tanned. I spent my remaining days trying to get the whole of my face tanned.
I achieved an even tan, and went to England, and whilst there, I went to see my daughter Vanessa who was about 6 years old. Being abroad working, and only having one break a year, I only had the opportunity to see her once a year, plus I was divorced from her mother who put many restrictions on my seeing Vanessa.
I decided to meet her out of school, and standing next to my ex-wife, waited, a clean seven bronzed man.
Vanessa ran out of school and my heart jump with happiness and joy, as I expected her to run into my arms. But no, she ran straight to my ex-wife, who said to Vanessa, “look who is here, don’t you recognise him?“, to which Vanessa said “NO“, and carried on telling her mother about her day, completely dismissing me.
I grew my beard back and it has stayed with me ever since.
Sometimes it is wise to look before you leap, before you do something, consider the consequences.
Sometimes it is best that you look at all the facts before making a decision, to take in all the information presented to you.
I am getting so many telephone calls from people trying to sell me something, getting my web sites high into the Google search results, asking me to take a survey, telling me that I have a virus on my computer, telling me I have won a holiday.
We need to stop, look, consider before we make that leap, or for me check the settings on my beard trimming machine.
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