I always consider coming to America and experiencing the life in a foreign country as one of the major turning points of my life during which I matured quickly and learned how to manage my living personally.
When I first came here, I was facing a lot of difficulties with the issues like language, cultural distinctions, Americans’ prejudice against Middle Easterners, and separation from my life. At first I dealt with a miserable sense of alienation and social rejection mainly because of my accent. I considered myself lower of the class compared to the native born Americans, and sometimes I was even afraid to talk because I was afraid of mispronouncing the words which, I thought, would make other people laugh at me.
But the problem was not just accent, but also the intolerable problem of being unsociable and not able to attract other people and make friends, and that was the problem that I dealt with almost my whole life, and, I should say, I couldn’t come up with a way to solve it yet, and I am accepting it as an unending reality as it goes. In my home country, I had a few friends all of which had similar interests and usually points of view toward issues as me. When I first came here, I naturally lost everything and everybody including my best friends, so the problem of being unsociable became more and more serious at that point I had almost nobody to be with as a friend.
In such a bad social condition, I also had to deal with the problems of a getting along with my new country. I clearly remember the night that I finally cried for my mom after two years of not crying because of a bet that I made with one my friends; in that night I talked to my mom about the harsh situation that I was in. I told her how I was afraid to talk even though I knew the language only because I am afraid that my accent will be revealed.
My mom; however, gave me a wise advise. She told me that accent is a necessary and inseparable part of my former identity from which I can and should never escape. Then she told me a beautiful and meaningful sentence that I shall never forget. “Remember, you always do your best”, she told me caressing my hairs, “and in that case the result will be the best it can be; not maybe the best, but the best possible result”. Fulfilling the message of this motto really changed my life completely.
From then, I started to better every day. I got my first “A” grade at school only three days after hearing this magic sentence. Five months later, I received my progress report for the first semester; you may not believe, but it was full of “A”s.
The motto worked and gave me a great hope for a glorious future which is about to happen. Now, this miraculous statement is more important to me than my name because I owe my happy and pleasant life to it, and I am sure as long as I know by my hear that I should always do my best regardless of all the problems, and in that case the result will be the best it can be, nothing shall never make me incapable of reaching my goals.
