Everyone has had an embarrassing moment or two, and although they are not fun to experience or even remember, they should not keep you up at night.

If something embarrassing happens to you, after you get over the maybe not-so-subtle blushing and “I can’t believe I just did that” mindset, simply move on.

It’s important to realize how little significance something like that has on your overall life. Not only will it be best to leave it in the past and accept that everyone messes up sometimes, but it will be a relief to your emotional well-being. It’s not worth the stress to obsess over something that already happened and you can’t change in the first place, so the sooner you can get over it the better.

In order for you to accomplish this, you need to understand that whatever happened- whether it made you look stupid or made you feel insecure- doesn’t have to impact you poorly. The mere aspect of not being hard on yourself or even laughing it off can even boost your confidence and make you more immune to future insecurities.

Of course, it is important to accept the matter, not dismiss it. So in order to move on, you need to accept that it did, in fact, happen. A good way to do that while avoiding dwelling would be to maybe share your stories for a laugh, while making sure to laugh at yourself and identify the possible humor or silliness of the situation. Sophomore Kayla Richardson used this strategy to her advantage.

“One time I tried out for a musical and I made it for the callbacks,” Richardson said. “When it was my turn to read lines, I kept stumbling on a word so I kept restarting and getting louder, which resulted in me yelling my lines. Under all my yelling I didn’t hear the director telling me to stop. When I finally heard the director and stopped, everyone laughed. I laughed along with them.”

Embarrassment is not the end of the world. In fact, Douglas Engelbart, an American inventor and engineer, thought someone could benefit through embarrassment in terms of maturity. Basically, someone can mature from accepting embarrassing situations and not dreading them.

“The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the amount of embarrassment he can tolerate,” Engelbart said.

Keep yourself optimistic about embarrassing situations and don’t take it to heart, at least not in a negative matter. I’m sure you’ve heard or witnessed them from others, because it happens to everyone and they should not be judged as anything other than human.

“Life is dull and boring if you can’t laugh at yourself,” Richardson said. “At every embarrassing moment I look back on I find something to laugh at.”