Putting limit to emotions

Tuongvan Le
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

If one could see all the photos of me since I was a baby to my current self today, one could notice how many different hairstyles I have experimented with throughout the short lifetime that I have had. Short, long, straight, curl, leaf-shaped, boy-cut, I have tried it all. It’s probably contradictory to the personalities that I seem to have — old-fashioned and fixated on the old ways of doing things. It’s hard to imagine that I would be willing to do something different to my hair. I fear transition, I fear change, I fear uncertainty. I also cry inside whenever I get a new haircut because of how uncomfortable I am with it. However, I usually end up feeling positive and happy that I get a new haircut, because it usually brings a sense of freshness in my life, a good one.

Source: Pixabay

I also like changing jewelry — bracelet, necklace, and hair tie, whenever I feel the necessity to refresh my life. This is probably why I like accessories so much — the affordability, portability, flexibility and ease of change whenever you feel the necessity for it. Hair and accessories have so much influence on how I feel sometimes. I feel like I change whenever they change.

I change hair and accessories whenever I feel like I need to put a limit to certain types of emotions. Every emotion has its limit, or at least should have its limit, in my personal opinion. Life just happens to throw curve balls at you all the time to challenge you in some ways so that it’s hard to have one constant emotion for a long time, even if you want to. I think it’s a good thing — to live and enjoy the surprises. If it’s a good emotion I want to sustain it as long as possible. However, if it’s a negative emotion, then I need to put a limit on it. On one day, I can have very different emotions hour to hour — happy, excited, anxious, worried, sad, confused, etc. Perhaps I am too observational of what is happening around me and too easy to absorb different emotions from others as well. While it can make my life more exciting and memorable, at times my emotions keep spiraling down uncontrollably and I feel stuck in negative thoughts. That’s when I make a change to my hair and accessories to actively refresh my own feelings.

Writing is also another way for me to spill out my emotions and refresh my way of thinking. I used to filter a lot more when I write because I was afraid to accept my own fears, illogical thoughts, and naturally terrible grammar. However, I have come to commit myself more to write down the most raw, unedited thoughts as it would allow me to remember who I am at each state in the most genuine, authentic way. I want my writings and photos of my hair and accessories to serve as authentic reminders of who I am at each stage in my life so that I can be in touch with myself again if one day I find myself lost in another world and need to find my own self again.

Sometimes reading my own writings or seeing my own outfits and accessories in old photos make me feel so uncomfortable and embarrassed. Actually maybe not sometimes, but probably all the times haha. Seeing who I was in the past makes me feel a bit uneasy to recognize how much and quickly I have changed as a person day by day, month by month. However, I think that change should be okay, just like how natural it is for emotions to change. One day I might be interested in one thing, then a year later maybe that interest can dry up, just like how passions and interests can change based on age and life circumstances. Change for the better, to explore the rest of the world out there that I haven’t explored yet. To discover the undiscovered.

Written by

Harvard ’17 | Strategy & Data @ Opendoor | ex-Bain, Morgan Stanley | Passionate about writing, education, community empowerment | www.tuongvanle.me

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