Basically, personal development is highly development on the environment in which a person lives and develops. In this respect, I should say that my personal development was dramatically affected by probably the major problem I have ever faced in my life, the problem of a refugee. On looking back into my past, I grow conscious of the fact that being refugees is not a very pleasant thing but, at the same time, it is probably due to this problem I have managed to become stronger and more independent.
In fact, the problem of refugee is very serious and it affected me consistently, especially at the beginning when I had just faced this problem in person. Frankly speaking, I have never though of the perspective of being a refugee. This is why when I have faced this problem in the real life I was in despair and I simply did not know what to do and how I could carry on my life. At first, it was extremely difficult to get used to the fact that I am a refugee and, what was even more difficult, was to cope with this problem.
In actuality, being a refugee means being excluded from the normal social life since a refugee is forced to live in a new social and cultural environment, while often refugees can face quite a negative attitude from the part of the local community. As for me, the most serious problem I had to cope was the finding my own community since I have lost my original socio-cultural background, while arriving into the new country I still remained a stranger there. As a result, I had to find my own place in the new community, get integrated into the new socio-cultural environment. In the course of time, I learned the local culture, tradition, social norms and values and I had to accept them even though some of them were quite different from those socio-cultural norms, standards and values I get used to.
Nevertheless, I strongly believe that I have managed to solve, at least partially, the problem of refugee for myself since I have become an active member of the new community I am currently living in. In addition, I would like to emphasize the fact that the refugee problem contributed consistently to my personal development. In fact, I hardly believe that I could be able to adapt to the new socio-cultural environment if I have spent all my life in a rigid socio-cultural environment actually I originate from, while, being a refugee, I was simply forced to find the way of integration into the new community. This means that I have to develop my communication skills, I get acquainted with the absolutely new culture, which enriched my personality enormously, because I believe that each culture is unique and each culture possesses a unique historical and spiritual heritage. Nowadays, I just feel pity that not so many people can get acquainted with different cultures, learn traditions, social and cultural norms of different people as I can. In fact, I believe that it is due to the problem of refugee I can communicate easily with any person, I am tolerant to different cultures and I respect people that are different from me.
Thus, the problem of refugee enriched my internal world and I believe made me a little bit better person.