Just Be Cool
Three words. Just. Be. Cool.
It sounds ridiculously simple. And maybe that’s the problem.
“Just Be Cool” doesn’t mean being indifferent. It doesn’t mean never getting angry, never standing up for yourself, or pretending that nothing matters. It means recognizing that most situations don’t require nearly as much drama, anger, ego, worry, or complication as we bring to them.
People have an incredible ability to turn a small problem into a large one. Someone says something we don’t like, and instead of letting it go, we analyze it. We assign motives to it. We tell somebody else about it. They agree with us, which makes us even more convinced that we’ve been wronged. Before long, something that could have disappeared in thirty seconds has occupied half the day.
We want to be right. We want the last word. We want other people to behave the way we think they should. We worry about things that haven’t happened yet and replay things that already happened and cannot be changed. We mistake inconvenience for catastrophe and disagreement for disrespect.
In other words, we make shit complicated.
That’s why “Just Be Cool” is harder than it sounds. Being cool requires something our instincts don’t always like: restraint.
Sometimes being cool means not sending the text. Sometimes it means letting somebody else have the last word. Sometimes it means realizing the guy who cut you off in traffic probably wasn’t launching a personal attack against you. Sometimes it means accepting that somebody can disagree with you without becoming your enemy.
And sometimes it simply means asking yourself, “Does this really matter?”
That may be one of the most important questions a person can learn to ask.
Because most of the things that steal our peace aren't the genuinely big things in life. They’re dozens of little things that we decided deserved big reactions.
Being cool means understanding the difference.
It means handling what needs to be handled and letting the rest pass. It means treating people with a little grace because everybody is carrying around something you probably know nothing about. It means not allowing every irritation to become an argument or every mistake to require somebody to blame.
It also requires accepting something uncomfortable: you cannot control other people.
You can’t control what they say, what they think, how they drive, what they post, whether they like you, or whether they understand you. You can spend enormous amounts of energy trying, but ultimately the only person whose behavior you completely control is your own.
That’s where “Just Be Cool” becomes powerful.
It shifts the question from “Why are they doing this?” to “How am I going to respond?”
That tiny change can simplify an enormous amount of life.
There will always be assholes. There will always be idiots. There will always be bad days, misunderstandings, delayed flights, screwed-up orders, stupid comments, difficult people, unexpected bills, traffic jams, and circumstances that refuse to cooperate with your plans.
You don't have to participate emotionally in every one of them.
Pick your battles. Laugh whenever possible. Apologize when you're wrong. Forgive people occasionally without requiring a courtroom confession first. Help somebody when you can. Don't manufacture enemies. Don't spend Tuesday being pissed off about something that happened Monday. And remember that winning an argument isn't always the same thing as winning.
Life is already complicated enough without volunteering to make it harder.
Maybe that’s the genius in Edds’ three-word philosophy.
You don't need a hundred rules for dealing with people. You don't need a motivational seminar or a 400-page self-help book. Most days, you can get surprisingly far by remembering three simple words:
Just Be Cool.
Easy to say.
Hard as hell to master.
But imagine how much better the world would be if more of us tried.