Men and Beards: 'Beards Teach Me,' A Guest Post By Adam Ford

Men and Beards is a dumbly titled awesome series about, well, men and beards. Presented by Mend Mark in honor of its debuting its new Beard Shirt. More details here. This guest post was written by Adam Ford and passed along by Mend Mark CEO Hunter Harrison. Enjoy ... 

Beard Today Gone Tomorrow

by Adam Ford | Adam on Twitter

Beards. I love them. I hate them. They teach me patience. They remind me that I’m as impulsive as a 7-year-old. Each time I decide to grow a beard, I declare “I’m going to keep it forever this time." And each time I grow a beard, I shave it in a moment of child-womanness-like-ness. Bearding is one of the only things in life that I cannot emotionally conquer. I’ll set a goal, and I’ll do really, really well until one day… Just like that. Boom. I shave. And it wouldn’t be so bad if I could just be content with a clean-shaven face. But I can’t. The beard…it will beckon to me time and time again.

A beard is like trust. It takes years to build trust, and one second to destroy it. It takes months to grow a great beard, and one bad decision to lose it. I am very well acquainted with this fact.

If you could put a beard on as quickly as you can take one off, I’d probably change in and out of it daily, like outfits. There are probably people in my life who think I have multiple personalities, due to my insistence upon playing “magical beards” every other month. Regularly people don’t recognize me because the previous week I had a beard. I don’t know why I can’t decide. I go ALL IN for a beard, or for a clean-shaven face, with gusto. And then I just change my mind.

Someday I’ll emotionally conquer my facial hair dilemma. Someday. Until then, I have my Mend Mark beard shirt so I can double up when I'm bearding and cope with my withdrawal tendencies when I'm clean shaven.