Jane Austen said in her novel "Pride and Prejudice," “Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

I will admit that I am a vain person. I have a very specific makeup, skincare, and shower routine. And when I skip just one step (such as forgetting eye shadow primer or something insignificant), my day gets thrown off.

A normal person could look at my daily getting ready routine and think that I'm insane. I think I am in a way. If I have two hours to do all my primping, I will take the two hours and use every minute of them. If I only have 15 minutes, I will pick and choose the most important parts of my routine.

And it's because I care what people think about my appearance. I am very insecure about the way my body looks, and throughout the years, I have picked through fashion magazines and Pinterest articles on the best way to style my hair, what silhouettes work on my body type, and what makeup products I should splurge on. My products and clothes are armor against the world and potential negativity.

I'm going somewhere with this, I promise you.

Let's go back to November 20, 2015. November 20 started out as a normal Friday. I allowed myself to skip my morning shower in order to catch 20 more minutes of sleep (I had stayed up late working on homework), even though I knew my hair (especially my blunt bangs) would look greasy and horrendous.

On November 20, my hair was almost to the middle of my back, and about half of it was split ends. I sprayed half a can of dry shampoo on my sad strands, snatched a beanie, and went on my merry way to class.

Later that night, I was attending and volunteering at an event called the UW-L Dance Marathon put on by the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity. It was an all-night dance party with special themed activities every hour, and all the proceeds would benefit the Children's Miracle Network. The goal was to keep dancing until two in the morning when the event ended. My sorority, Gamma Sigma Sigma, decided to help out with the arts and crafts table as well as run registration. I signed up for the registration table and expected to have a fun night dancing and volunteering.

By 9 p.m. I was done at the registration table and joined my fellow Gamma Sigs on the dance floor. We got to meet some of the kids who were being helped by the Children's Miracle Network, ate snacks, and made superhero crafts (that was the theme). Suddenly it was announced that a bunch of the SAE guys would be shaving their heads for wigs for kids who have cancer. I watched four or so guys shave their heads and thought, "Dear God, their heads will be cold this winter."

Next I saw a girl climb up onstage, had her hair separated into two pigtails, and snipped off. She smiled, felt her newly short hair, and walked away.

In cartoons and TV shows, whenever someone gets a brilliant idea, a lightbulb goes on above their head. This was my lightbulb.

My hair was in a miserable ponytail and hanging on for dear life. I ripped my hair tie out and ran my fingers through my hair, thinking, "I don't need this. I don't want this anymore. I don't need any of this hair. Someone else could use it."

I turned to one of my Gamma Sigma sisters, pushed my phone into her hand, and said, "Film me." Then I walked onstage amongst cheers and gasps from my friends. I said jokingly to the woman cutting hair, "I need a haircut." I was led onstage, my hair got tied into two pigtails, and they were snipped off.

When those two pigtails left my head, I had two thoughts. One was, "Why haven't I ever done this before?" Later that night, I discovered the joy of brushing through tangle free, split-end free hair—a feeling I haven't experienced since middle school. I don't find little hairballs scattered around my room (gross, I know). I also had a sudden rush of intense vulnerability. My security blanket was gone! What was I going to do? I looked out at my sorority sisters cheering for me and thought, "To hell with it. I'm a short hair girl now."

Another thought was, "This is why all the flappers cut their hair!" I love the aesthetic of the 1920 and always found the drastic change from the long hairstyles of the 1910s to short hairstyles interesting. Even today long hair reigns supreme. Almost every supermodel and actress has gorgeously long strands that seem to defy the reality of split ends. When those two pigtails left my head, I was breaking the rules of how society expects me to present myself as a heterosexual woman, and it was thrilling and liberating.

There's a cute video of my hair being cut floating somewhere around Facebook, and I'm not going to lie, I like to watch it once in a while. The past fall semester was stressful and exhausting, and at that moment in time, I let the joy and adrenaline of spontaneity consume me. Normally I like to think through every action before I perform it, and when I don't, I get flustered, embarrassed, and awkward. That video is a fun way to remind myself of the good things that can happen when I let myself go.

Throughout the next week, I had multiple women (specifically women, no men told me this) tell me how brave I was for cutting my hair. This struck me in a strange way. Since when was cutting my hair brave?

I didn't feel brave; I just had an opportunity to do something good. Yes, my hair went to a good and noble cause. Yes, it was cut in front of a hundred or so people. That entire day I had been thinking about how I couldn't wait for winter break so I could get my hair cut. But why was the act of doing so brave? When I think of bravery, I think of soldiers, firemen and firewomen, doctors, and police officers—not overly excitable college girls getting a trim.

Going back to my earlier words on vanity and my own insecurities—many women are like me. They have a specific routine in order to feel as confident as possible before they walk out the door, and a good portion of their routine often includes styling their hair. Hair is a symbol of femininity and identity in American culture. At this moment, long, luscious locks are what every commercial and magazine tries to make us want.

But I don't want that. I don't need to be someone else's idea of a "perfect" me. I can be happy with the way I look without wanting someone else's hair or lips or eyes or hips or breasts or butt. I can cut my hair or leave it long or do whatever I want with it. Pleasing society isn't what matters—pleasing myself is what matters. And when I chopped off my hair and donated it, I was the happiest I had been in a really long time.