Understanding the Impact of Your Upbringing And "Freedom" of Choice

Remember when you were younger and your parents told you to do things this way or that way and you weren't alright with it at all?

Now you look back on countless moments and begin to understand why they did that or why they were right to yell at you for not washing the dishes or wearing dirty shoes in the kitchen.

Especially in your early 20, everything starts to make more sense and you can connect the dots. Your childhood plays such a crucial part in your worldview and to keep reminding yourself about that is so important when applying your view on external events.

Back then you couldn't care less because it wasn't part of your understanding. You weren't aware of it. Awareness makes you get the bigger picture. Even if you think that some things could have been done differently your parents probably wanted to raise you in the right way.

Of course, sometimes they made a situation worse than it actually was, but if they hadn't, you would never have understood why your actions were wrong, and you would have ended up repeating the same mistakes.

Parental Feedback  

I remember doing some dumb stuff when I was little and looking back, it wasn't even that big of a deal. But my parents would give me countless lessons about my misbehavior.

Even if these moments are funny to me now, I needed this reaction from my parents to show me the right way of thinking. The reason I can think so clearly about these situations today is because my parents were able to dictate to me what would work and what wouldn't.

They don't have to be your buddy or your friend. They need to take on the responsibility of a parent and raising their child to develop the right mind and skills to be prepared for the real world.

Example.

When I was around 14, I and my friends decided to go to the local swimming pool at night, which was obviously forbidden.

Fast forward, we got busted by the police.

It's a fun story to talk about now and I'm sure that my parents knew that it would, later on, be a funny story to tell. They knew there was a relatively low amount of danger involved and there were worse things that I could have done, but I still had to get my punishment.

I had to understand where to set the limit and adjust accordingly.

Contrary, the parents of a friend of mine were rather cool towards him and even joked that they too did such things back in their days.

My friend received completely different feedback from his parents. His feedback is internalized and formed his judgment on life in a completely different way.

This ultimately led him to approach life with different understanding and attitudes because of the different teachings from his parents.

That doesn't have to be good or bad, it's different.

Still, it's absolutely crucial to receive the right dosage of proper judgments and understand the consequences of your actions because otherwise, you can make some risky or inappropriate judgments in parts of your life, that will be unforgivable.

Even if the whole situation wasn't that big of a deal, I understand why it was important to be strict with me. My parents set clear boundaries.

Boundaries that I internalized and that gave me a framework of what works for me and what does not in life.

But that brings me to another point: The way you think is because someone taught you to think like that.

In most cases, it's the person that was responsible for raising you.

And who was that? Mostly your parents. So basically your whole frame of mind is built on someone else's values and ideas.

You probably already know that. But it's not just your parents. Your environment is a denominating factor as well.

But what if you unconsciously become a victim of your surroundings?

Why You Do NOT Have Free Choice

You should understand that you don't have free choice, but free choice in a pre-defined environment.

You don't choose what you can choose. Someone else chooses what you can choose.

Example

One day I was driving through South Carolina and I passed a construction site. Right next to the main street of a smaller town, there was a block of apartments being built.

What was interesting to see was that you had around 13 fast-food chains, 100 meters away from the place where the apartments were built.

You could immediately see how the environment will impact the people living in the houses. Obesity will play a part in their lives because every time one of the residents steps out of the house, they have the temptation of choosing between 20 different burger options.

And to be fair, at some point, and especially as a child, you will give in.

In the end, they might think they have free choice and can choose the food they like.

You choose based on what's available in your environment.

You were put in an environment that was designed by other people and companies.

Someone decided to purchase the land, build their business and sell it to the people that live right next door. In their eyes, you were born as a customer and the goal is to keep you as their customer.

That sounds pretty harsh. But the ones building these businesses are also slaves of their environment.

They choose what is available in their world. If you want to build a successful business in a particular area, you have a limited number of choices. Those choices were given by someone else before him. And that's this endless cycle that we're in.

A small pool of individuals designs the small world that we grow up in.

Conclusion

Understanding the impact and power of your upbringing is understanding yourself.

All the small ticks, norms, and thinking patterns you applied to your life are because you are a product of your upbringing, family household, and environments in general.

There is no crazy lesson to draw from here, I just found it super interesting to think about the fact that we all think we could technically do whatever we want or that we completely think in our own way, even if that's not the case at all (or at least partially).  

We have free choice in what is put in front of us.

The input we received during our lifetime created the baseline of our thinking.  

We can simply be grateful for being placed in a loving household or a safe environment with opportunities that lead to greater personal achievement.

It's worth giving it a thought.