The Influence of My Life Experiences on My Personality

"All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual” (Albert Einstein). I believe all the experience lived throughout one's life are the ones that shape the individual to the person he becomes. I was born in San Francisco, CA, but I moved at a very young age to Nicaragua, a third world country, where I am from originally.

Throughout my childhood I was very used to seeing poor people in the streets, skinny dogs with no homes, and garbage on the roads.

All this could be seen in rural areas and less in urban areas, but still there can be seen little kids asking for money in the streets. Since I was a child, I was aware of poverty and it would often be an extremely overwhelming topic for me because I wished I could help people, but I was just a kid. I lived in Boaco, which was more of a rural area until I finished middle school and then I moved to the Capital “Managua” to continue my education. At this moment, I had to separate from my parents because they had their jobs in Boaco, and started to live with one of my oldest brothers Brian.

My high school was a catholic high school, which had many extracurricular and apostolic activities for the students, and I became interested in one in particular that was based on helping the poor. The movement it is called the MTA (Teresian Apostolic Movement). In this group we would meet one hour a week to pray, play games between the members, and plan activities to help kids in the streets, schools with very low resources, and some locations where poor people live.

I remember one experience in particular where we went to a poor school called “Hugo Chavez”, where we had to bring food for the kids studying there, plan games, and socialize with them. We were assigned to one or two kids each student and talk with them about their interests, learn about their lives, and make them feel good.

I was assigned to a kid named “Oscar”; he was a very easygoing little boy of 8 years of age. I asked him about his classes and everything that came to my mind, but I had to be careful with the questions I asked to not intrude in his personal life either. He smiled all the time and told me the cutest thing I have ever heard; when I asked him what he wanted to be when he grow older, he said: "I want to be like you", at that moment I was very confused, maybe he thought we were rich people or professionals helping them; I felt moved by his answer. After that day I realized that life is full of problems and I began to value how precious life is and thank God that I did not have to deal with so many life changing issues and real problems that are worth worrying about. I also started to feel the need to help in some way. I wanted to fish in that Ocean of never ending problems and begin to clean it out a fish at a time. It was very surprising that just by listening to others one can make a person feel better or happier. I became very interested in psychology, and thought that this field could be one way I would manage to help others.

Through my teenage years, friends would come to me and trust me their problems. I learned by listening to their experiences, many things about myself, many qualities that I did not realize I had that I think make this field of interest good for me. Also, friends would tell me that I am a good listener, and thank me for helping them understand their issues and explain the reason of their problems from different perspectives that were being ignored or unseen. I would help them realize the consequences of their actions and reason to their reactions without judging them and helping them feel good about themselves regardless of the problem. Luckily, there was always a solution and I would guide them to it. I remember being in 11th grade, I had my best friend as every girl; her name is Katherine, I was very close to her family too and they treated me as one of the family.

One day she came to me crying, and I asked her the reason she was crying for; she then told me that her parents were getting a divorce. I was very sad for her and the only thing I could do was listening to the story and help her though that situation. Her mother cheated on her father and she was going to leave them. Katherine was really sad, but then weeks, or even months later she was holding a huge grudge to her mother, and her mother had realized she was wrong and wanted to apologize, but Katherine was very upset and would not want to hear any apology from her mother. She would always tell me how angry she felt at her, and I always made her think straight and tell her to leave things behind, try to forgive, and that everyone has a second chance, that she is her mother after all.

When she felt she could handle the situation, she decided to talk to mother, and then everything was in the right place again. I was very glad to help her through all that hurting experience, and very happy that they were all together again. I love how the mind works; it's intriguing and mesmerizing. I am curious people's behavior, the reasons they do the things they do, ways people cope with their problems; I believe that through psychology I can help humanity, one problem at a time. I am looking forward to learn and broaden my horizons by going through the training I need to reach to that one place where I can do well and feel satisfied about what I do.