No matter how old you are or what kind of environment you're in, there always seems to be pressure to conform to society. You feel pressured to dress a certain way, act a certain way and style your hair a certain way. You're supposed to change any aspect of yourself that may differ from the norm.
Luckily for me, stepping away from the social norm has always been something I'm comfortable with; at least regarding my hair. I didn't own a hair straightener until I was 14, even though it seemed every girl was straightening their hair, and I wasn't afraid to play around with the color of my hair. Just a few days after I turned 12 I put several streaks of neon red in my hair, and I haven't stopped dying my unnatural hair colors ever since.
My hair has been red, pink, blue and purple. I evolved from doing just random streaks throughout my whole head to making the entire bottom half of my hair a crazy color in an ombre style. One thing I had always wanted to do was dye my whole head a crazy color, but I never had the guts to go through with the task...until recently that is. Almost exactly a month ago, I finally had the courage and dyed my whole head purple. It took three-and-a-half hours and several tubes of hair dye, but I did it.
And it has been the best decision of my life.
Putting any unusual color in your hair gets some attention, but nothing like dying your whole head purple. In the month my hair has been this way I've got a range of reactions; both positive and negative.
My hair wasn't purple for even an hour when I got my first reaction to it, and it wasn't a good one. The cashier checking my mom and I out when we were grocery shopping was very aloof and strange, no matter how we tried to talk with her she was pretty silent. Mostly because she was too focused on my hair.
Even my brother had a bad reaction, calling me a grape when he first saw me and asking me why I did it. My response was simply, "I like it."
Almost every teen or young adult I've encountered has had a positive reaction, some even telling me that they wished they had the courage to do the same to their hair. I am so glad that I made the decision to dye my hair, and can't wait to dye it a different color.
You shouldn't base your decisions on what you wear, do, say or participate in based on what society thinks you should do. You need to do things that will make you happy because as long as you're happy any negative response to your action will just roll right off of your shoulders.
So go ahead, dye your hair, cut your hair, wear that outfit that you've never had the guts to wear or do whatever you've been holding back on because you're afraid of people's reactions. You'll be so much happy once you do.
