Do you remember how Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) spends the whole first season of “The Good Place” hiding that she is a fraud? I remember it pretty well because apart from where she makes shrimp fly, I relate to her — I sometimes, too, feel like a fraud. The premise of my entire column is the lessons I’ve learned in college, but I often forget to apply them until life delivers a painful reality check, reminding me I’ve been here before.

I wrote about how the Indian international student community constantly gossips about each other and then vowed not to partake in it. Yet, I am still one of the first people my friends approach when they want to know what’s happening in someone’s life. 

I also wrote about forgiving my enemies, yet I almost dropped a class when they sat behind me on the first day of class. Last year, I was especially proud of my article on letting go of friendships that aren’t meant to be, but last month I found myself clinging on to a relationship well past its expiration date.

All of these lessons learned but not implemented feel like broken promises. Each of my articles is a contract between me and you — my seven readers — and every time I don’t live up to the lesson, I am letting you down. You should check if you can sue me. 

I am an imposter, after all. I’m not sure if people should even read what I have to say if I don’t implement the lessons I’ve learned. Am I a credible source of information about the international community or a college junior if I pretend to have grown so much over the years, yet I am stuck in the cycle of the same mistakes? I’ve gone back and forth on this a lot, so much so that I have considered discontinuing this column.

Every time my friends joke about how much I gossip despite my article, that twinge of shame and embarrassment only grows. And, I should be embarrassed, not because I haven’t implemented all the lessons, but because I’m not doing much to implement them. I admit that it’s unrealistic for me to implement all the lessons at once, but if I were making a constant, honest effort to change at least a few things, I wouldn’t feel embarrassed.

When you are constantly learning from all around you — whether it’s through a column every two weeks, 18 units of classes, from a plethora of teammates in clubs or a small group of friends on a Friday night — it’s impossible to implement all of those learnings at once. College is when we are expected to grow, and we do learn how to do many different things (I’m looking at the vodka pasta I made for dinner, which I couldn’t even imagine making in my freshman year); however, so much learning can be overwhelming. I sometimes don’t even know where to begin changing because I am spoiled for choice. 

Instead of feeling paralyzed and making no changes at all, though, I’m going to focus on a few at a time. I won’t measure my progress by whether I’ve been 100% successful, but by whether I’ve made an honest effort — and whether I’m committed to keep trying. While I haven’t made a concerted effort to gossip less, and I know I really should, I do see myself making strides towards forgiving those who have wronged me and accepting friendships for what they are. And I plan to continue working on these. 

Additionally, appreciating what you are doing is also important. I was skeptical about how much I would learn from my “Introduction to Mindfulness” class, but I did learn the importance of reminding myself that I’m doing enough. We all have suffered from this imposter syndrome at some point, and to tackle it, we have to believe in ourselves. We should accept that we could be better, and we will make efforts to get there, but we are also awesome as we are.

You and I aren’t imposters; we’re just messy college students. And we may become flawed adults, put-together executives or absent-minded grandparents. In the end, we are all just imperfect humans. And as long as you didn’t just land on Earth from Mars, you can’t be an impostor human. 

Edhita Singhal is a junior writing about life lessons she has learned in college in her column, “Thinking Out Loud,” which runs every other Wednesday.