Samantha Gross

Even if you’ve never heard the word “sprezzatura” before, I guarantee you know what it means. Sprezzatura is the endless balancing act of trying really hard while simultaneously hiding the fact that you’re trying in the first place. It is the study of being perfect in a nonchalant, effortless way.

Sprezzatura was first coined by the Italian author Baldassare Castiglione, who wrote The Book of the Courtier in 1528. The goal of the book was to teach readers how to be good advisor-companions to royalty. Here’s what Castiglione has to say about sprezzatura:

“Practice in all things a certain nonchalance (sprezzatura) which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless.”

-Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (1528)

The word “practice” is important here – sprezzatura can be learned, but it’s a difficult subject to master. Many people spend their whole lives studying this art that conceals art – but the catch with sprezzatura is that to be truly successful, you can’t admit you’ve put forth effort. Sprezzatura is not “keeping up with the Joneses” – it’s being the Joneses. Sprezzatura is not about yearning and striving to get ahead – it’s about having already arrived.

The ability to do the most difficult things as if they were nothing at all isn’t as satisfying if you can’t brag about it, but that’s one of sprezzatura’s core tenets. If you’re good enough, people will notice without you mentioning it. Sprezzatura sets people apart: it separates the idols from the idolizers.

Above all, sprezzatura is ironic and an act of deception. This isn’t to say that sprezzatura is regarded negatively; on the contrary, Castiglione (and much of our modern world) believes that it is a good quality to have. It’s associated with words like “grace,” “perfection,” “art,” and “effortless.” Susan Cain’s book Bittersweet dedicates several pages to examining sprezzatura at elite US universities. The term “effortless perfection” originated at Duke University in 2003 and is also used at Princeton. Stanford students call it “duck syndrome,” referring to how ducks glide placidly across the water – but underneath the surface, they’re paddling like mad.

Students at America’s top colleges eat, breathe, and sleep sprezzatura. To them, it’s all about how you’re perceived – you have to be unique enough to stand out but simultaneously fit the mold. You have to be weird but not too weird – nobody wants to hear about your melancholy struggles and personal problems. You must be everything all at once – intellectual, carefree, quirky, sexy, straight-A student, fun at parties, good at sucking up to people without coming off as desperate… The list goes on and on. You must be all the things but not go overboard on any of them.

Susan Cain asserts that this phenomenon is not limited to the nation’s top universities but that it pervades the very fabric of the American psyche. I’m inclined to agree – it has seeped into our cultural consciousness so much that it is hard to divorce sprezzatura from what it means to just be human. Sprezzaturic college students go on to become sprezzaturic working adults. Corporate culture reinforces what was learned in college, and sprezzaturic ideals have worked their way down into high schools that are so eager to produce “college and career ready” graduates. Even some elementary schools celebrate “college week,” for crying out loud. Championing sprezzatura is not solely limited to the education system by any means, but it is a strong pipeline for producing sprezzaturic adults.

Confession time: I’m a sprezzaturic. The goal of my life thus far has been to be perfect in everything I attempt. If I try something and it doesn’t come out perfectly the first time, I’m inclined to throw the whole thing in the garbage, frustrated and ashamed of myself. No one can know how many attempts (or how much time it took) for me to create the perfect lesson plan, write my perfect notes, deliver my perfect speech, or dance my perfect dance. If they found out, I’d immediately lose credibility, and at that point I might as well go curl up in a hole somewhere and die.

Now that may seem dramatic, but for some inexplicable reason, that’s what the emotional experience of sprezzatura feels like to me. I have a hunch that I’m not alone in that regard.

For a long time, I’ve tried to be unique while also blending in with the crowd. I want to stand out but not so much so that I become ostracized. I want to be admired for how exceptionally well I conform to society – the way I glide gracefully through all of my various roles as daughter, woman, wife, teacher, Asian, liberal, co-worker, millennial, and so on.

The thing about a label is that it is impossible to embody all of its varying definitions at once. Labels are subjective. What one person thinks the “model co-worker” should be like will be different from what the next person’s expectations are. Much to my chagrin, we can’t make everyone happy all the time.

We could try to fulfill all of the different labels we’ve accumulated, but at that point, our inner effort and struggle to juggle everything would be completely unsustainable and impossible to hide under a thin veneer of graceful nonchalance. It would all come spilling out, and then we’d have a reckoning on our hands. We certainly wouldn’t have sprezzatura.

Instead of an explosion when we can’t live up to society’s (or our own) spretzzaturic ideals, why don’t we make a conscious effort to step away from them? Easier said than done, I know, but perhaps it’s time to pull back the sprezzatura-saturated curtain and provide a window into our true selves. The selves that are messy and complicated. The selves that make mistakes and have regrets. The selves that learn and grow from failed attempts.

If something is difficult, let’s be up front about it. Life is hard. Let’s not make it harder on ourselves by pretending it’s not.