BE CHALANT.

Picture somebody cool. They’re probably smoking a cigarette with one foot on the wall – much cooler than the person in the library studying Norse Mythology, keen to understand what Yggdrasdil really means.

In our teen years, those precious moments of characterful ideation, we idolise nonchalance. It’s nigh-on a superpower. 

But somewhere between our first kiss and our first tax return, the shine wears off. That detached energy reeks of disengagement and fear. 

When Effort Stops Being Embarrassing

Life isn’t about what we can get away with, it’s about spending as much time doing what we can’t bear to be away from. Culture romanticises the notion that the best things in life just… happen. No strain or sweat. That effort somehow cheapens the outcome. That enthusiasm is embarrassing.

Outside of the screen, we know deep down that everything we want that we don’t currently have requires more of us, not less. More willingness to expose the underbelly of our ambition.

Yet too many of us spend too much of our lives rationing ourselves out of fear: fear of being seen wanting something, being seen trying something that’s unlikely to happen, trying to redraw the edges of who we’d love to be.

It’s astounding how prevalent the idea that appearing effortless is something to aspire towards. The opposite rings true in psychology – it’s called the effort paradox. Once we apply ourselves, we tend to value the outcome more, not less. What costs us nothing doesn’t garner respect.

A Word We Forgot To Use 

Unsurprisingly given the collective English perspective, we imported nonchalant from the French nonchaloir (indifference), but never chaloir, or chalant.

Chaloir means to matter, to carry significance. We think all of us should try to be a bit more… chalant.

Adulthood requires us to reengage with the world in order to truly enjoy it. Life isn’t served to us on a school dinner plate. The most interesting people are those who can dive into the life of the uncredited backing singer on a song they love, not the ones who pepper us with memes of AI slop. The people who occupy their existence instead of hovering somewhere slightly above it.

This is a reminder that our weird bits, our quirks, the multicoloured Google Calendar that’s organised to a scary degree, are the things that make us brilliant. We all need to turn our chalant-o-meters up.

A Chalant Life

When we’re frustrated that we’re not tapping into our potential, the easy option is to think we’re too fixed, static, too far gone, to be chalant. It’s the cowards’ logic.

Norman Doidge, one of the men who popularised neuroplasticity, quotes the neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran in his book The Brain That Changes Itself:

“Imagine I cart a pig into your living room and tell you that it can talk. You might say, ‘Oh really? Show me.’ I then wave my wand and the pig starts talking. You might respond, ‘My God! That's amazing!’ You are not likely to say, ‘Ah, but that's just one pig. Show me a few more and then I might believe you.” 

Human change works the same. All we need is one single moment where we acted outside of our usual script. One rep, conversation or risk. That’s enough proof that the boundaries of our identity are far more elastic than we care to believe.

As Alan Watts said, “you're under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.” Does it get more difficult to make change as we age? Of course. But too often it’s some life shattering circumstance – like a death, health scare or a breakup – that shakes us awake from our sleepwalking habits of repeatedly doing what’s expected and inconsequential.

Our circuitry changes when our behaviour changes, not before it. First the act, then the identity. The question is whether we’re willing to study our own talking pig, or if we’d rather wait months or years to find more of them.

Stop Saving Yourself For Later

People hear “passion” and think of metaphoric fireworks – cinematic enthusiasm. In reality, passion looks more like devotion and repetition.

We don’t meditate because we’re calm. We become calm because we meditate.

We don’t run because we’re disciplined. We become disciplined because we run.

Identity, and by extension performance, is always downstream of behaviour.

This is why nonchalance kills potential. If we pretend nothing matters, we never repeat anything. When we don’t repeat, nothing can compound.

Our brain watches behaviour and updates our character accordingly. So today, ask what signals you send to yourself. Because the path of least resistance leads to the lowest reward.

We can’t live a full life by holding back, waiting for the right time to kick things up a gear. Everything we want – better health, quality of life, deeper relationships, improved performance – requires more enthusiasm, engagement and intention.

Because when all is said and done and the dust settles, all that remains is whether we showed up as a spectator or a participant.

You weren’t built for the stands. All it is, is a choice, to live like it matters.

To be chalant.