If there is one thing that is for certain, it is this: Nobody’s perfect.

Those two words seem to be ones we hear or say as often as we say “hello” and “goodbye,” especially during this point in our lives where we find ourselves growing and learning more than we ever have before.

While it is important to take these two words as a signal to improve, it is crucial that we also realize these two words for the green light that they are: To live and learn, and to do so while being able to laugh at ourselves if the situation calls for it.

While we cannot coast down the road of improvement without making mistakes here and there, the ride will be much bumpier if we choose to get upset over each failure or beat ourselves up over every little thing we wish we could change.

It is not always easy to look at our flaws and mistakes in a lighthearted way. The ability to laugh at ourselves for who we are and the slip ups we have as we grow older and wiser is not something we can all develop overnight.

Author Wes Adamson put it best: “Yet the best determining factor of how comfortable we are with ourselves, is our ability to laugh at ourselves.”

Life does not need to be taken so seriously all of the time. We do not need to linger on everything we have ever done and think about how we wished we could have done it. Instead, we can remember it and admit to ourselves that we should have known better, and laugh it off by using that instance to do better the next time.

Confidence is something we struggle to find when we are still young and at the peak of being impressionable by comparing ourselves to our classmates, friends and peers. There are ways to find this confidence outside a social media robust with posts documenting our lives or comparing ourselves to the people around us to pinpoint our strengths and weaknesses.

This confidence can be found entirely through ourselves. Instead of comparing yourself to the person next to you, compare yourself to who you once were. You can find comfort and peace with the strides you have taken since you were a young child, a confused preteen, a misunderstood teenager and now, a college student just figuring it all out.

And there is nothing wrong with doing just that: figuring it all out.

And while you are figuring it all out, do not be afraid to get comfortable with that idea as well as the idea of yourself. Laugh off the past and giggle at the hiccups you have on the way to the future. We cannot guarantee that the people around you may not join you, but the people around you will learn that they can do the same with themselves.