I’ve never seen Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway, but I think the visual of him dancing and singing onstage in plaid trousers is a good hook, hence the title. Speaking of the star, the first thing you need to do in order to be successful is be Daniel Radcliffe. As in, get scouted at the age of 10 to play one of the most important characters in literary history in a movie series, and then be unapologetically under 5ft 5” for the rest of your life. But if the short-lived child star gig doesn’t work for you, you’ve got options.
Abandon the Concept of Stress
Actually, I think “abandon” is too soft of a word. What you’re aiming for here is a life in which the concept of stress never actually existed. As a toddler, you waited patiently for each meal and never spilled anything, so that your parents ended up sending all your bibs to your older, much more volatile and less perfect cousin who, to no one’s surprise, ended up taking drama all through high school. You went right from sitting up to walking because you knew it was more efficient than crawling. Your adorably fallible but ultimately stupid friends fumbled through test dates and assignment submissions but you—effortless, effervescent, some-other-e-word you—rested comfortably at the top of your class, bestowing fond, benevolent glances upon those scrambling below you. The most stress you’ve encountered was the time your good friend Justin (others affectionately call him Prime Minister Trudeau) asked you over for dinner the same night as your performance at Massey Hall. (The solution was, of course, to have Justin come to your performance and then visit for dinner afterwards.)
Command a Casual Social Life
You, obviously, don’t know of it as a “social life” because it’s so organic and natural and flowy and other words used in tampon commercials that it just kind of happens. In fact, you didn’t even make friends—they just appeared one day, knowing everything about you and chuckling over inside jokes you all share like you’re on the set of Friends, but better because there’s no Ross. You go to just enough parties that everyone remembers you and wishes they’d spent more time with you but can’t recall what you were like exactly, so that the next time you show up, everyone tries to stick around you so that they don’t forget again. You are breezy; so breezy, in fact, that Covergirl actually named their slogan after you. You’re dating someone all the time, but if you’re not you’re the kind of single that means you can say, “I’m just working on myself right now,” and mean it. Your exes have only the fondest memories of you and when you traipse by them on the subway (you are the type of person who can effectively, beautifully traipse), they wistfully wonder whether breaking up was the right choice.
This is what you and your casual friends on a casual night look like, all sipping milkshakes together and laughing over that one time Dave did that thing and wasn’t it so funny the way he told that joke?
Health as a Lifestyle
You are the one person in the entire world who likes green vegetables. When your landlord once came in to fix your refrigerator, he opened the fridge door and mistakenly thought you had painted the inside of it green. You once made pasta out of carrots; not because you didn’t have any pasta but because you actually like the taste better. You’ve only ever eaten ice cream made of frozen bananas, and when you talk about your eating habits in front of your friends, they find it charming and fascinating instead of insufferable and mind-numbingly boring. In the same way, you conveniently always have to call someone you know while on the treadmill, and even though you are physically incapable of running out of breath by some stunning biological miracle, you slip in a bit of heavy breathing so that your friend has to ask if you’re running, and you have to answer with a play-by-play of your workout routine. Again, your friends, your poor little bumbling friends, hang onto your every word and even once tell your workout routine as a story when they’re visiting home for the weekend, to which their parents asked Jamie are you doing OK and Jamie we really couldn’t give less of a damn. Of course, Jamie gives a damn, so you continue to deliver for your receptive audiences. The concept of being incapacitated by any sort of illness is foreign to you, as foreign as a Twinkie or laughter, probably. (Have you personally dealt with a struggle of any sort in your life? Ridiculous of me to ask. Of course not.)
This is the kind of ice cream you bring to your friends’ houses, made of literal bananas and nothing else, and when they see you carrying that adorable container they all laugh and say, “Oh you! Oh marvelous, quirky you. I’d love to taste some of your melted banana!”
Now for the finer details. Your hair is made of silk, preferably gold and spun by Rumpelstiltskin. Your teeth are pearls and your eyes are hand-painted and your voice is more soothing than Morgan Freeman’s and your nails never chip and your feet are average-sized, not too big not too small, and your skin is as clear as water, sorry scratch that, your skin is literally water, and you’re immortal and can also time travel and understand every single pop culture reference but are also intellectual and studious and all the things you obviously can’t be if you can name a single Kardashian and you can speak seven languages and never forget your keys in the door and when you read this article you didn’t think it was about you because, it turns out, you’re also incredibly humble too.