No one likes being made a fool of for the sake of their dignity under any circumstances. The mix of the feelings of shrinking into your seat and frustration at yourself are some of the worst mentalities to ever follow you around. When you are on your way to class and, in front of a very pretty girl, you slip on some ice and land flat on your back, there is nothing more you wish but to suddenly learn how to time travel and try again or simply lie there and hope you disappear into thin air. Ah yes, pure, unfiltered embarrassment, but I digress, as someone who knows and understands embarrassment at its roots, it only truly exists when YOU think it does.

Why do you think we as people feel unembarrassed when we are participating in something we enjoy doing, but society might deem as strange or weird? For example, writing. I love writing, more than I love most things, but every time I tell someone I'm a writer, they kind of feel uneasy about my passion for something that is fairly unpopular. Now, if I didn't have that passion for writing and I told someone that, I would also feel embarrassed because a writer is a writer because that is their passion and because they routinely take part in such passion. I would feel embarrassed if it wasn't for myself. Even moments of a fault action, like a miscommunication between your peers and yourself or a fall in public or a bag that bursts open at the airport terminal, can all be shaken off and credited to your own thought process.

Lets say you and your roommates are putting on a small get-together in your home, and you thought it was starting at 5 o'clock pm, but you soon discover it was at 3 pm, which is now, and you've left your room unbeknownst that everyone you invited is in the living room, waiting for you, and you're in a bath robe with an empty bag of Cheetos in your hand. Unique, I know, but a reality nonetheless. Now, you can either choose to be embarrassed and frustrated, or you can rise above it and acknowledge that what you are going through is typical and not something to stress over. I'm no longer embarrassed by silly things like a slip of the tongue or a fall in public, or even, because I know there is nothing I can do but forget about it and continue like nothing happened. We forget a lot of things every day, and I make it a point to make sure embarrassments are one of them.

Looking beyond embarrassment is not exactly an easy task, and is actually quite difficult and requires a lot of focus and time, but so is the task of being embarrassed altogether. if you can pretend that no one saw you make a mistake while simultaneously accepting and overlooking your embarrassment, learning from it and moving on become exceptionally more easy, because it's all in your head, anyway. If someone chooses to laugh or poke fun at your failures, then shut them down by accepting your failure; There laughs always disappear fairly rapidly when you forgive yourself.