This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Don't Tame My Mane

We need curls and balances in government!

Trying to tame curly hair is a lot like the government today. There’s too much unnecessary busy work and too many rules that really don’t do a thing in the long run.

When I was young, it was very “uncool” to have curly hair. I used to sleep (not very well) with Campbell tomato soup cans wrapped around my unruly locks. Friends would iron my hair (flatirons were not invented yet) — always a scary ordeal.

As I got older and had more money, I’d try different styling products to straighten my hair. Before long I had all sorts of gels and sprays and complicated routines that I would try. Truth be told, nothing really worked and my hair would still bounce back with curls I couldn’t control no matter how I tried.

Find out what's happening in Novatowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

One day I realized this was a lot of wasted time and money. I had created all sorts of hoops to jump through but I didn’t get to the root of the problem. Of course, I didn’t have a problem, I just thought I did, because I was listening to all the buzz around me about what I should do to make myself better.

So, I stopped cold turkey. I just let my hair alone. And it was fine. Occasionally it might really go off to the left or to the right, but most of the time it stayed pretty much status quo. I had a lot more time and money and I relaxed more — my quality of life was better.

Find out what's happening in Novatowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Our government, on every level it seems to me, needs to just go with the flow a little bit more and stop the urge to legislate every possible thing one can conjure up, with the noble thought to make our lives better. All these rules don’t necessarily improve our quality of life one bit. However, like too many hair gels, they can really goop things up in the process — and they cost time and money — our time, our money.

Most of the time, Americans, when left to their own devices, will do the right thing. The majority rules in our magnificent country and the majority are pretty centrist. Sure, we’ve got our “left of lefters” and our devout right-wingers, but they mix out in the gentle conditioner of democracy pretty darn good.

If we could throw away the obsession to constantly create rules to make people behave the way someone else thinks they should, we’d probably stop all the nasty partisan politics that has hit an all time high  — and I contend even the NIMBY’s would calm down. All that gnarly frizz would disappear. Our government would save a lot of money, which means we taxpayers would have more money in our pockets, and that would improve our quality of life, don’t you think? We’d be more “chill” as the ‘new gen’ says and much more accepting of everyone — and their individual differences, styles and hairdos.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?