Do It For The Plot.
My long, previously untouchable hair was buzzed off and scattered on the dorm bathroom floor. What once was a source of my insecurity-driven nightmares became the best decision I ever made for myself. I buzzed my hair off: doing it for the plot.
Six months later I stood shaggy-haired in the middle of a dance studio. “I’ve done Just Dance,” I thought to myself. “How different could this be?” It turns out that the Zumba class my roommate somehow convinced me to register for was a lot like Just Dance, yet I emerged just as left-footed but infinitely more enthusiastic.
Many people, myself included, sit out of activities in fear of embarrassment or because they've never done it before. The classic "old college try" mindset—known in the Tik Tok age as "doing it for the plot"— is a mindset that we should all try to bring back. Joy is a long-term gain. Fear of judgment, however, is a short-term impediment to our enjoyment of life. In the grand scheme of things, what’s a little bit of insecurity compared to a whole lot of living?
With summer approaching, there will be plenty of opportunities to add “enhance plot” to your to-do list. Your friends invited you on a spontaneous camping trip within 12 hours of departure? Do it for the plot. There’s a pair of scissors lying around and you’ve always wondered how you’d look with curtain bangs? Do it for the plot. Noticed that you’ve sat next to the same stranger in your lecture every class? Add a new main character and introduce yourself!
But, doing it for the plot doesn’t always have to be a spontaneous act, either. This mindset is really meant to embody letting go of the “what-ifs” and the outside judgments of everyday life to focus on what you want in your life. You can add to the plot by being opinionated in times you might’ve omitted your thoughts: saying “no” when your people-pleasing anxiety would’ve typically forced you to say “yes”. Or, stepping out of a relationship that is turning your plot into a movie you’d never watch.
The plot is all yours. You write and direct your own movie, and you get to decide who the main characters are. In the end, every moment — good, bad, awkward, or embarrassing— is a plot point for the larger narrative of life. Live unapologetically, and give the audience the plot twists they never saw coming.
I returned home from my freshman year of college with a freshly buzzed head and a new take on confidence. Heads turned and judgments were made, but I was unphased. I realized that day how little hair meant in the grand scheme of my confidence, and yet I had been using it as a cloak over my insecurities the entirety of my life. The plot point itself of buzzing my hair was minute in proportion to my life, but it jump-started an exigence to do more for myself and to take back the director's chair.
