The Definition of the Word "Cool"

By Dina Fawaz on February 21, 2016

While I was standing in line waiting to get into a club the other night, something happened. Some may call it an epiphany while others may call it a rash decision made on the basis of a bad mood. I call it, however, a moment of maturity growth.

Maturing is a funny concept; you can’t really feel it happening, it just happens. Some people mature rather quickly, while others may never mature. Some may be considered mature in a certain aspect of life, while completely immature in a different aspect. Regardless of the time frame or aspect of your own maturity growth, you cannot tangibly or visibly see it happen. It is quite comical when people, usually your elders, tell you to “grow up and mature already,” as if it is a switch you can turn off and on. Although this is not usually the case, it almost feels as though you just happen to wake up one morning randomly matured. The point here is, maturity is a concept that is as ambiguous as the concept of emotions.

Ironically enough, the moment I had while waiting in line to get into a club the other night completely contradicts the point I had just made. Logically, I acknowledge that it is impossible to feel “maturity” happening, but I could argue that I must have felt the closest thing to it.

I have always taken the cheesy “be true to yourself” sayings/quotes like so:

pretty seriously. With that, I can confidently say that I have always been, or have tried to be, aware of, comfortable with, and true to myself. I was never one to attempt to change myself to become what others or society perceived as the correct definition of the word “cool”. I was never one to partake in activities that I personally did not want to do in order to portray myself as what others or society perceived as the correct definition of the word “cool”. I made my own definition for the word “cool”, and for the most part, I would say that I stayed between the lines of my definition for most of my life.

However, at the same time, I consider myself a huge people pleaser. Call it a blessing or a curse, but I will go to the moon and back to make the people I care about happy. Sometimes in order to do so, it involves stepping outside of your definition. This was never a big problem for me in high school, mostly because all of my friends (‘all’=~3) had very similar definitions as me. Therefore, what made them happy tended to make me happy as well.

What people don’t tell you about college is that there are so many new and crazy definitions of the word “cool” that it becomes hard to remember what your own definition is. I quickly realized that college is less about trying to impress others and more about trying to hold onto your own identity. I also quickly realized that whether I let it happen or not, being a people pleaser led to slowly expanding my definition into things I was never comfortable with to begin with.

Back to the waiting in line for a club scenario: Along with my friends and I, there were SO many people waiting in line (and when I say ‘SO many’, I mean like it felt as though the entire state of California was waiting to get inside of this club). People were pushing and yelling and drunkenly falling over each other to the point where I legitimately started questioning the intelligence of the entire human race. But this happens all the time though. I have been in this scenario a million times before. This was just another night out on a college campus. This is what fun is. This is what a college experience is. This is what your definition of “cool” should be in college.

Then it hit me: my big moment of maturity growth. I tried evaluating my emotions at that moment. But I felt nothing. I asked myself if I felt excitement for the night to come, and my answer was not really. I asked myself if I was having fun currently, and my answer was not really. I asked myself if being in that club would make me happy, and my answer was not really. Only then had I realized that I had been living a blur of not really‘s for absolutely no reason. Or maybe I did have a reason. Maybe it was to give myself the classic college experience that everyone always talks about; but if this is what I am supposed to experience, then I think I have experienced enough. Maybe it was to get closer to and please my friends who liked doing things like this; but if I could only do that through following their definitions of “cool” then it isn’t really worth it in the first place. Maybe it was to meet new people; but I am starting to believe that meeting new people has less to do with your surroundings and more to do with your personality.

I had realized that I wasn’t doing things to make myself happy anymore. I do think going to the club is fun and I usually enjoy it, however I found myself going more times than I personally wanted to because I thought that is what my new definition of “cool” needed to be. My point here is, I had finally realized that I was subconsciously losing myself, when I thought that I would be the last person on earth for that to happen to. Losing yourself is an easy thing to do on a college campus, and I hope whoever reads this questions if they had/have lost themselves a little as well.

So I had decided to get out of the line and walk myself home because that is what I truly wanted to do at that time. I could swear that once I got far enough away from the line that I felt whatever “maturity” is. It washed over me and rang through every bone in my body. It was almost as though someone was patting me on the back saying “welcome back”.

I felt good. I felt confident. I felt like me.

:)

 

 

 

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