I went to a barber shop for the first time in my life the other day. It had been about a month since I’d had a cut, and my hair was starting to get a little shaggy. Normally I’d give it another couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the Taipei humidity was turning my cut into a frizzy mess, and I thought a bit of a crop would help matters.

There were hair salons around, but I’d walked past the barber shop and liked the 60s aesthetic it had going. I also figured that since I have a really short cut, they’d have a better idea of what to do with it than a higher-end spot, which would probably charge me a lot more anyway.

The experience was pretty fantastic. Scalp and shoulder massage, hot towels on the face, everything. I’m not sure how many barbershops do that kind of thing anymore, but it was incredibly relaxing. And it didn’t hurt that an adorable cat named Lolo was hanging out next to me the whole time. Plus, it only came to around $40.

Just one problem: it was, without a doubt, the worst haircut I have ever received, and too short to be fixable. A couple of years ago, I might have despaired over this outcome, avoided leaving the house, worn a stupid hat. Instead, I went out to a baseball game, a housewarming, and a party at a bar where I didn’t know anyone. I felt like I looked terrible all day, but ultimately it didn’t matter that much.

The cut was a pleasant process, but produced a bad result. Does that mean the process was also bad? If you judge solely by results, then yes. Would I have preferred that I walk out feeling like I looked great? Of course. But the bad result doesn’t cancel out the positive experience that led to it.

It’s just hair, right? It’ll grow back. But I think a lot of things we think of as significantly more important than hair are like this. We assume that if a particular means didn’t achieve the ends we wanted, then the means were faulty. If you write a book and it doesn’t receive the reception you were hoping for, you might assume that your writing was at fault. And maybe it was. But the reality is that causal relationships are often not so simple, and the outcomes we hope for are as often the result of blind chance as they are of our efforts.

That’s why you have to love the process. If you can find a way to enjoy what you’re doing, then whether you get the outcome you want or not doesn’t really matter. If you can’t — if all you can think about is attaining that feeling of perfect satisfaction or success or whatever — then you’ll always be at the mercy of fate.