Embrace What You Love (Even if it’s Deeply Uncool)

What do you love to do? More importantly, what do you love to do that you’re a little bit embarrassed about? Maybe the thing you only do when no one is watching…like watching archealogical programs or reading kids books or listening to classical music or knitting or dancing around to teen-pop boy band music.

If you love opera, and sunsets, and afternoon tea, and dancing til dawn, and DVD days, and walks in the park, and crosswords, and Shakespeare, and reading trashy novels, and dancing round your kitchen, and singing into your hairbrush, own it. Embrace it – it’s what you love. Even if embracing it means putting up with a raised eyebrow from your partner, or a mocking comment from a friend, own it. “Yes, I know it’s nerdy…and I love it.” (maybe they just need permission to be deeply uncool too!)

Often when I start to work with clients, they will start to tell me about something they love to do that’s a bit ‘uncool’, but it’s not important to be cool. It’s important to love your life. Don’t try to be cool or only like the things your friends like, instead, find, acknowledge and accept the things that you like. Whatever brings you joy is cool, whatever you love is right for you – who cares who else joins in?! And often, you will find friends who will join you in your joys.

An old friend I once went clubbing with is my “Shakespeare-play-attending friend” – if you’d told me 15 years ago that we’d regularly be seen in Stratford taking in some thespian-shaped entertainment I’d have assumed you were on drugs! And since we started going, other friends who’ve never expressed one small interest in the theatre have suddenly decided they might like to go too.

Don’t wait for anyone’s permission to enjoy what YOU love – enjoy it anyway. Friends will join you. Or not. Who cares? If you love it, that’s all that matters, own it and be ok with being ‘uncool’, ‘geeky’ and ‘off-trend’. Trust me it’s way more fun than standing in a ‘trendy’ club you think is shite in ‘trendy’ clothes you feel like a muppet in with ‘trendy’ people who are boring you to death!

I know the cool kids teased you at school, and we all wanted to be in the most popular groups…but it’s time to let that shit go – people mock because they don’t understand. I once mocked someone for owning the Star Wars box set…I now own that box set. I just didn’t realise how good it was. Let them not understand, and enjoy what you enjoy with or without their blessing.

You don’t need anyone else’s approval to enjoy Star Wars, or sunsets, or Shakespeare, or cheesy 80’s music, or kids fiction, or terrible teen films, or cartoons, or anything else that’s not trendy and popular and terribly stylish. And if you do need someone’s permission, here it is:

You are hereby granted permission to like what you like, love what you love and enjoy what you enjoy, even (especially) if it’s not ‘cool’.

I’m not 14 anymore, and I don’t want to hang out with the popular people…unless I like them, of course. It’s not about what’s cool, or trendy, or fashionable, or ‘sick’ (hmm)…it’s about what’s fun, what’s energising, what makes me smile and dance and laugh and lose myself completely. And for me, cool now has a new meaning. Cool isn’t ‘popular’ and ‘fashionable’, it’s individual and unique, it’s an energy of joy and love and lightness. Cool is enjoyment!

You’ll never fall in love with your life if you’re waiting for someone else to approve your joys, or if you’re trying to enjoy things you don’t really like in order to be down with the kids. Whatever gives you joy, that’s what’s right for you. Own it, girlfriend, enjoy it, embrace it…and fall in love with your unique loves.

What unique loves do you enjoy? What deeply uncool things do you do and delight in? And is there anything you weren’t enjoying because it’s a bit embarrassing that you will start having a good time with now?

PS This article is an excerpt from my fabulous book “Fall in Love With Life” – for more details and to buy, click here.

Related Posts