Hello everybody, it’s your resident cool girl in school here to give you tips and tricks on how to be cool (just like me, duh). Of course, I’m only joking; if you’re reading this, you’re now officially a resident Magnet cool kid too. But, if you don’t believe that you’re cool yet, this article will hopefully help some of my lovely lost lambs who are still searching for their identities. Sure, it takes years, sometimes even decades, to find yourself in a world filled with nealy 8 billion people; however, I’m here to share my experience as someone who generally feels comfortable with their self expression. With that being said, here are my 5 steps that’ll make you cool (guaranteed).

First of all, “cool” is so subjective and I think you’re all cool no matter what. Even if we are polar opposites! And honestly, I think recognizing that is the first step to becoming cool. Seeing the beauty in individuality is key to finding yourself and what makes you “cool”. For me, I found that enjoying all aspects of my personality has allowed me to recognize how cool I am. For example, I wear whatever I want and I don’t care what others think (unless it’s a creepy man, but hopefully that’s self explanatory). I’m going to talk a lot about confidence in my next step, so I won’t bore you with more confidence details. But, it is so vital that you recognize how unique you are! Your brain is like no other, whether you think you’re smart or not, creative or not, etc. So, celebrate your brain and what it can do for you! Beware, I can already tell this article is going to be one fat cliche. But seriously! There’s only one you. That goes for twins and triplets too. There’s no excuse for you to think you’re basic or boring because you are most definitely not.

Secondly, I’m a big believer in “fake it till you make it”. You don’t necessarily have to believe you’re the prettiest, strongest, smartest, or even the coolest; but, when you start acting with confidence in yourself, that confidence sticks. Believe me, I know. My freshman year was a toughie- sure, I had friends and all, but I definitely didn’t feel cool. You know that feeling when you think everybody hates you? Well, I was stuck in that mindset from the end of freshman year until the tail end of sophomore year, around the time quarantine started. I know it’s sort of become a cliche to say that “quarantine changed my life!” but it’s true; figuratively and physically. I got some new friends during that time as well as spending a WHOLE lotta time alone with my thoughts, which is kind of scary to be honest. I don’t recommend that. However, with these new friends and my old friends, along with the extended period of time where I got to focus on myself and better my mind, I became significantly more confident. Confidence affirmations do a LOT for your mental health, especially when it comes from people you admire! Surrounding yourself with cool, confident people also makes you feel cool. Obviously, everyone has bad days and you’re not going to feel like yourself some days, and that’s perfectly ok! If you think you’re cool, who’s to tell you you’re not, you know?

Step 3 discusses your outlook on life and people as a whole. I’d say I’m pessimistic to a certain extent, but that doesn’t hold me back from seeing how other people live under different circumstances than I do. I think it’s super important to recognize that although you’re the only you and you have every right to love yourself, there is no need for a god-complex. In order to be cool, you cannot (CANNOT!!!) put other people down in order to make yourself seem better in comparison and/or make fun of people for things they cannot control. Poking fun at others, especially for their appearance, is so unacceptable and you are automatically uncool if you do. You do not have to put people lower than you in order to make yourself more confident; true confidence is self created by you and you only! Basically, the point of step 3 is to make sure you can appreciate the beauty in everyone else. You do not necessarily have to worry about how people perceive you and you definitely shouldn’t do things in order to make people perceive you differently than you actually are. Society will always have a huge impact on our self perception, but who’s to say you and other people cannot diverge from societal norms! I’m mostly referring to those that make fun of certain facial features, body sizes and shapes, skin color, gender identity, and sexuality, but this goes for so many other things as well. Accept other people just as you want to accept yourself!

***Note: You are also automatically uncool if you use slurs to refer to people or are apologetic to the rude uses of said slurs…there are so many other words to choose…let’s try not to make others feel horrible about themselves!!!

Next, you should focus on finding the things you enjoy and go crazy. I mean, I’m not telling you to run around naked or to steal from Walmart, or anything illegal like that. I guess what I’m trying to say is do the things you love and hone your craft. Who cares if people might think it’s dorky or boring…I think it’s uber cool when someone is super passionate about something!!! It could be anime, music, playing minecraft, drawing cartoons, school, writing; literally anything. Finding passions can lead you to figure out what/who you want to be in the world. Even if your future occupation may have absolutely nothing to do with your passion, doing things you love makes you a happier person! I bet this seems like a given, but you’d be surprised at how many people I’ve grown up with that have been afraid to show certain things about their personality to their peers due to their fear of societal rejection. I know it’s easy for me to say “who cares!!!”, and I know that to a certain extent, people choose to care about what other people do with their lives. I just like to tell myself that those people who want to poke fun at my style or interests have nothing better to do and that they’re creeps for spending their free time thinking about me<3 Sure, that may sound a little god-complex esque, but hopefully you get my point. I’d rather be me than hide it and shame myself for the rest of my life! In America, we are lucky enough to be able to have self expression to a certain extent. But, we can’t ignore systemic issues and legal issues that still make it hard for everyone to express themselves as they wish. Sorry for the slight politicality… moving on.

Finally, this might seem slightly repetitive, but in order to be the ultimate cool kid, you must stay true to yoself. Basically, your thoughts, feelings, and opinions are always valid. I call this part of the step the “stick-up-for-what-you-believe-in-even-if-the-rest-of-the-group-disagrees-with-you” phase. Your mind is valuable, and I’m a firm believer that in order to get issues resolved and to spread the wealth of knowledge, conversation is very necessary. There’s no harm in speaking your truth (unless it harms other people, see step 3), and, again, we live in a place where we can do as such. I’m also a big believer in cutting people off who make fun of you persistently for being yourself. But, it’s important to note that if people continuously cut you out of their lives, it might be a you problem…not a them problem. Now we arrive at phase 2, the self realization phase. Self development is also always key; our brains grow everyday, especially in adolescence, so when there are toxic patterns, we gotta give ourselves some self help. Being cool means being yourself, sure, but it also means being able to recognize when you’re wrong. Being self aware makes you the coolest. Basically, steps 3 and 5 kind of go hand in hand with the whole “god-complex” trope. We shouldn’t care what people think of us, but we definitely should care about how we make others feel, as sappy as that may sound.

Usually I’d save this kind of topic for a podcast, but since the past year has been such a mind boggling whirlwind of absolute madness, I felt it’d be better to write about it. We all need some introspection every once and a while! I still haven’t figured it all out, and you may not have either, no matter how old you may be. I mean, if you DO have it all figured out, maybe you should be writing this article instead of me. All I know is that I’m pretty stinkin’ cool and my dog thinks so too.