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Doing on your own: to grow up and to find yourself.

Doing on your own:  to grow up and  to find yourself.
Source: deviantart.net
"What is most valuable for me is all the time I've managed to do it on my own". (Piero Angela, Tv author and scientist)
Primarily it might be scary. Alone, without counting on others: that's usually frightening for those who are not used to it. But even if it might be scary, it becomes one of the most precious experiences in one's life. This is the result of an international survey made by University of St. Petersburg, in Russia.
In the survey thousands of interviews were done with the aim to appreciate which are the most valuable experiences for a human being. At the top of the ranking between most valuable lived experiences, there are the ones concerning "succeeding on my own".
But succeeding in what?


There are usually three kinds of experiences:
1. Reaching a financial autonomy: become independent from parents or to set up a business.
2. Living alone abroad. Going to study or to work in a foreign city, without knowing anyone (and often neither the language) or without the usual points of reference.
3. Solving a problem or a special challenge. According to the survey, there is more satisfaction if you manage to solve problems or to win hard challenges by yourself.

Video - To have just a little television in your hands. Berlin is in Germany.

2001. A man is getting out from a jail near Berlin. He has a little television in his hands. This man is an ossie, an East German. He was arrested before the fall of the wall and now he has to restart a new life in unified Germany. So he realizes quite soon, that he has lost everything he ever had. Even his wife went with another man. A west German. All that he had was a little television and the desire to start a new life. During the whole movie, everything goes wrong for him. But every time he starts again. And in the end, he succeeds.

Video - 4 Italian girls abroad.

It is a great and exciting experience. Living abroad alone. In this video, 4 Italian girls are talking about their personal story in 4 different cities: .Nottingham, Strasbourg, Sydney and Madrid.

Video - A little child staying home alone.

He is a little American child. He is the youngest in a large family. So large that when they are moving for holidays, they forget one of the kids at home. And when mummy understands it, it's too late because they are too far away. What happens to a 8 year old child, home alone? And not so alone: because a couple of thieves that night are trying to break into his home? What does he do? He has a lot of fun. And for the thieves it becomes a very painful night. Home alone was an international blockbuster. It is funny and it shows that little children have extraordinary force.

Video - He did not succeed.

Original trailer of "Into the Wild": from Jon Krakauer's bestseller, it is a real story of Christopher Mc Candles. After university, Chris has lived for two years around the States, trying to manage on his own. With no money, no papers. Everytime he succeds in solving every kind of problem. Everything was going well for him. Always. He lived in the desert of Nevada, he went to Mexico with a canoe and he knew what should have been the final challenge. Surviving in Alaska. All alone. He arrived there on April 1993. And he managed to survive for three months into the wild. At the end of summer he decides that he had enough of being alone. He wanted to go back to society. So he left the place where he had lived for three months, going back home. But between home and the wild there was the final problem. A large river that he had crossed some months ago. That time the river was almost dry. Now it was full of stormy rapids. So Chris gave up and went back into the wild. Near his lifeless body there was a paper: "SOS. I need some help. I am sick, close to dying, and I am too weak to walk. I am all alone, and that's not a joke. In the name of God, I pray to you, stay and rescue me. I am here around to look for some berries and I'll be back in the evening. Thank you. Chris McCandless."

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Stefania Mirani

32 years old from Milano - Italy
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