How Your Life Experience Influences Who You Are - Personal Statement Example

Who are the people and what are the events that have impacted you and informed who you are today? No: Date: Who are the people and what are the events that have impacted you and informed who you are today? Life teaches many lessons to people and when people go through a number of happenings, their personalities get shaped. Life deals with different people differently due to which, we see diversification in people’s personalities existent around us. I also enjoy the liberty of having a personality that is shaped because of certain happenings and events in my life along with the people who lived and placed an impact on me as an individual. Therefore, what I am today can be related to people, places and events that I met and dealt with until today. I have an Asian background and work as a receptionist in a doctor’s office. Along with this job, I have to do an internship at an agency where I work as a personal shopper and my job is to assist other people in shopping for clothes, shoes and other required accessories. I enjoy my job mostly, but sometimes, it becomes a burden because by nature, I am a lonely person who likes to remain separated and speak very less. So, as I am not talkative, therefore, I, sometimes, do not like to listen to people when they are really mad and continue to speak uselessly. I live in a nuclear family having my mom and me only. Previously, when I was very young, I used to live in an extended family in which, I had my grandparents, my uncle, aunt and my father. At that time, I considered myself very happy and satisfied with my life. I was really confident. However, with the passage of time, my confidence shattered and I suffered through loss of relatives. When I was five years old, my grandparents moved to USA leaving my father, mother and me to live in a nuclear family. At the age of twelve, I saw my parents getting separated after divorce due to which, I was left with my mother only. Before three years, I moved to USA with my mother. The person who has affected my personality the most is my mother who has been with me since my birth. Her love for me cannot be ignored, as she has never left me on myself until now. She has accompanied me when no one was there for accompanying me. When we moved back to USA and I was to live with my grandparents for some time, I felt very lonely and strange among them because there was a gap of full fifteen years between my livings with my grandparents. It was a huge time and I was very uncomfortable. USA, in itself was a new place for me to exist as it is enough withdrawn from my native land. I was to exist in a new land with different values, customs, traditions and cultures. A setting in diverse lands is not as easy as it appears. People are different, languages are different, cultures are different, in totality, it appears as if everybody around one is an alien. Therefore, USA for me was an alienated land and it was a challenge for me to exist there. I have to cope up with this challenge until now. In USA, we can find people from diverse cultures and lands and it is said that it is a melting pot of cultures where any body can exist. However, this existence is not uncomplicated, as a person has to indulge in a fight with himself or herself to prove his/her self worth on a new land. USA is considered as a dreamland for people coming from developing countries and they regard themselves fortunate to enter a land of opportunities that offers various ways of progressing in life. However, financial progress is not everything and one cannot buy everything from the money that one earns. In my opinion, we shifted to USA having similar notions related to financial progress and stability in life, but emotionally and psychologically, leaving one’s native land and shifting to a new land is really damaging. USA has its own issues that are faced by entrants in this new land. According to my understanding, these issues include discrimination based on race, class, ethnicity, cultural belongings and many others. Because of belonging to some other part of the world and trying to settle in a new place in itself builds pressure on an individual. Then, she starts facing the issues of discrimination and considering oneself inferior or somewhat deprived of the care that one requires, all combine together to drag a person to more seclusion and alienation. People living here in USA speak many languages, but they have to speak English essentially, as it is the national language of the land. In our country, we were required to speak in our language. I knew my language perfectly, but English was new for me. Therefore, when I came here, I started learning English as a second language. Now, I can say that I am a bilingual, but I do not excel in using English perfectly. Language is the basic source of communication as people communicate by using language. People can be befriended by using language. Social belongings can be created by using language. Therefore, I can say straightforwardly that language is everywhere and it is very important. Even after learning a lot, still bilinguals are easily identified because there are traces left of the native language that one can fluently speak. Instead of considering the skill of bilinguals in learning more than others, they are discriminated due to which, they have issues of inferiority and loneliness. I consider myself lonely and secluded at various times, as I really feel myself detached from other people around me. That can be because of my separation from my relatives and my land. Relationships and place where one belongs are really crucial for her personality. As far as I am concerned, I really consider myself dislocated. However, I feel that with the passage of time, I can cope up with the differences and variations that appear unacceptable to me now. Life is not a bed of roses and I have to take this challenge to prove my self worth. I cannot just lose the battle of life and present myself as a laughing stock to people around me. They are also like me and have struggled to exist, so I have to do my struggle like others. I am an introvert at this time and want mostly to remain with myself. The people who have affected my personality are my mother, as I have previously informed that she has affected me mostly because she has remained with me always, secondly, I am affected a little by my father’s personality, but at that time, I was just a little girl and then, I have some influence of other natives as well. I lack friendship of people due to which, I consider myself more secluded and alone. I cannot do friendship because in actuality, I have lost trust in people and relationships due to which, I am somewhat threatened to form any kind of link because links can be broken resulting in further damage. In totality, I am very shy and have lacking confidence. How can I control this shyness, lack of confidence and other issues that I face in my life, I really do not know. However, I know that a successful life needs me to handle all my issues. Whenever I see crowded places, I just try to avoid such places. My jobs require me to communicate with different people, but in actuality, I do not like to communicate to anyone, but myself. Whenever I talk or correspond to anyone, that is just a necessity. This appears really weird to people whenever they know about my secluded nature or personality, but I think that this is what life has made me. Belonging to a broken family, separated from relatives and living at a new place with unknown people, are all the issues that drag me further to loneliness and seclusion. However, I know that life offers a lot to everyone. If life has its drawbacks, it also has its advantages. If people suffer while living, they also get rewarded. Therefore, I have to wait for the light in my dark life, which can be somewhere here. I have become more touchy and sensitive because of the circumstances that I underwent in my life. Losing relatives and friends, leaving my native land, facing discrimination and other settlement issues, facing trouble with using language and accepting everything new, all have transformed me into a person that is more introvert and recluse. Whenever I have a problem or issue, I never try to reach others to gain support in order to solve the problem, instead I ponder over the situation and find solutions myself. Sometimes, these solutions are right, but many times, these solutions are not that right as they appear. I can make mistakes like others, but there should be some caring and supporting links that can bear the burden of my mistakes with me or who can suggest me with good recommendations. Because of my personal problems, I never trust people and am somewhat doubtful about their considerations and viewpoints due to which, I try mostly to look into myself. However, I feel that sometimes, I really need others and myself is not enough for me. Spending my childhood in an extended family, being dragged into a nuclear family because of circumstances and later on, being a part of a broken family and reside with a single parent, all appear to make me a person that is no more interested in communicating or corresponding with people or forming relationships of any kind. I think that people have left me with my mother only by taking away their love for me due to which, I have lost trust in relationships. In addition to that, I got detached from my native land where people had somewhat related cultural and traditional backgrounds. I consider myself rootless because I am like a plant whose placement is changed all of sudden without her approval for the change. I have to do internship because for my future and career, I really depend on my job. I have to learn to coordinate and communicate with people in order to exist successfully where nothing is possible without communication. At this juncture, I have to face the challenges that I meet on daily basis, but I feel that this struggle with myself and with my surroundings would pay off. Keeping hope is essential as without hope, there cannot be any struggle and without struggle, life cannot move forward. I feel that I should prove my self worth by working hard in my life. Read More