Why I Stopped Trying to be Chill
I’ve lost count of the number of times in my life I’ve been told to “relax”, “chill” and especially to “not be so intense”. It’s the feedback whispered in a university tutorial after I have expressed a point. It's the subtext of a man, who upon meeting and learning of my background and interests, calls me “intense” like it’s a diagnosis. It’s the pervasive, invisible pressure to be the girl who is “effortlessly perfect” and silently productive enough to meet the needs of a patriarchal society.
For years, I tried. I really tried to be that girl. I saw the uniform. The aesthetic of curated nonchalance, the “just threw this on” outfit, the no-makeup makeup, the messy bun that took hours to perfect and is anything but. But “effortless” has always felt like a lie. It’s a full time, exhausting performance. And for me, trying to fit into that costume wasn’t just a style choice, but a betrayal of who I am.
This pressure to be “chill” hits a specific, painful nerve for me as a first-generation Romanian-American. There’s a strange, unspoken paradox I’m expected to live. On one hand, traditional culture carries its own heavy expectation for women to be perfect: to be the dutiful daughter, the flawless homemaker, and the one who manages everything effortlessly and silently.
However, that expectation of quiet, effortless perfection is in direct contradiction to the very story of my family.
My family comes from a place and a time where silence was survival. Under a communist regime, you had to be uniform. You couldn’t be loud. You couldn’t stand out. Having an “intense” opinion wasn’t just a social misstep, it was dangerous. My family’s journey here was a rejection of that forced silence. It was a fight for the right to be ambitious, to be vocal, and to strive openly.
My family’s story is nothing but effort. It was difficult and deliberate. It was an unmistakable, visible, and grueling work of sacrifice. My parents didn’t leave a regime that demanded uniformity just so their daughters could adopt a new one, the American uniform of “chill.”
The cognitive dissonance is staggering. How could I be chill when I am the walking breathing product of relentless, passionate, un-chill work? I look at my sister, a Ph.D. student at Stanford. She is not “chill”. She is there today because she wasn’t chill, and because she challenged the status quo. She is focused, she is driven, and she is achieving something incredible through pure, visible determination. To be told to be chill doesn’t feel like a request to be quiet in my eyes. It feels like an order to erase the very story of sacrifice and ambition that got me in the room in the first place.
Perfection is a myth, and “effortless” is an insult to the work. The chill girl doesn’t get an equally funded job to her male counterparts; she’s too afraid to sound needy asking for it. The chill girl doesn’t challenge faulty data or outcomes; she doesn’t want to make waves or step on anybody’s toes. The chill girl doesn’t get a seat at the table, because she is too busy pretending she doesn’t even want the seat.
So, I am officially resigning from my role as the “chill girl”. I am not chill, and I never want to be. I am the product of ambition that refuses to be silent. I owe it to the women before and after me to stay loud and intense. Effort is not something to hide, it’s the proof of our power.
Written by: Thea Enache
Cover Design: Brenda Diaz
