Accepting yourself is hard. It’s hard to be OK with your flaws and insecurities. It’s hard to accept the quirks that make you, you. But at some point it has to be done. You have to be OK with yourself and who you are. Some people are uncomfortable being confident, they’re uncomfortable with the fact that they don’t hate themselves like so many others seem to these days. That shouldn’t be the case. You should love yourself. And you should be okay with loving yourself. Here are some reasons why it is okay to be happy with who you are:

1. You have spent your whole life being you, and you’re going to continue to spend your whole life being who you are. You might as well embrace it.
2. You’ve probably been through a lot. Everyone has their own personal story, some harder than others, but that doesn’t make the others any smaller. It’s okay to give yourself a break and just accept who you are and the life you live.
3. It’s not cool to hate yourself. For some unknown reason, there seems to be this unspoken idea that wallowing in self-loathing is the thing to do, especially as a young adult, in our society. There is this odd glorification and emphasis on not being okay with yourself. They’re wrong. Forget it. It’s weird and you should love everything about you unconditionally.
4. Working to keep yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy is a very good thing. It keeps you busy and improves you as a human being. This is good, and it’s OK to acknowledge that you take good care of yourself. You might as well take credit for the work you do.
5. Your parents spent a lot of time trying to make you the wonderful person you are today. If you don’t love yourself or accept the fact that you are okay with you, it will honestly break their hearts. Parents usually want their children to be happy, they spent years pouring their heart and soul into you, so why would you want to let them down now just because you don’t like the way you snort when you laugh?
6. Confidence is attractive. Let’s face it, when someone walks into a room and doesn’t look like they are scared of every human in the room and generally miserable, it’s a pretty cool thing. It makes them 100 times more appealing. You want to be their friend, you want to spend time with them, you want some of them to rub off on you. Be that person.
7. You are your own worst critic. It’s cliché, but it’s probably true. No one is as hard on you or thinks as harshly about you as you do. It’s okay to lighten up and not be so hard on yourself, and then, it’s okay to acknowledge the fact that you aren’t always beating yourself up about the little things. Again, this is a good thing.
8. When it comes to physical appearance, being confident is OK and being OK with the fact that you are confident is also OK. If you think you look good and want to post that selfie, do it, don’t be a narcissist, but don’t be afraid to acknowledge that you are in fact an attractive human. There’s a happy medium, find it and live in it.
9. Accepting yourself for who you are is hard. If you are a strong enough person to do it, take pride in it. Take pride in the fact that you have learned how to be yourself, you have learned how to love yourself, and you are happy with who you are. That is a pretty amazing thing that not everyone can say, so you should say it if you can.
10. Chances are, you are probably a pretty amazing and unique human. Even though it’s really hard, working on accepting yourself and improving yourself in every sense of your existence and life is important and, quite frankly, it’s vital to surviving. You are you, and you are amazing. You should accept yourself, and you should love that you have done so. Never stop working on yourself, but know that you are as good as it gets, and it’s perfectly fine to know that.

People always say that it’s OK to not be OK. It’s also OK to know that you are OK. If you’re happy and healthy and you know it, probably because you’ve been working for it, own it. Be happy that you are happy, and know that it is perfectly acceptable to be happy for, and with, yourself.