chosen paths

is one compelled to choose a path dictated by thier upbringing or is it possible to choose your own path and ignore the enviroment in which you where raised, by this i mean can someone go on to do something which was not introduced to them in anyway shape or form when younger

everyone is capable of choosing their own path. however they may be influenced. it all depends on how strong their will and determination is. and no one give me anything about being detained by they’re social situation everyone has the power. some just dont know how to find it and how to use it

Ahh, nature -vs- nurture in the area of self-determination.

Choice: the ultimate freedom, Wayne W. Dyer was fond of saying; and first expounded in thesis upon this notion in his famous book, Your Erroneous Zones.

Of course people can choose to break free from the influences of a negative environment, MILO. Don’t be ridiculous, you see it all the time. You hear stories of it happening all the time.

The question becomes complicated when you factor in exposure to more positive choices: What has this person been introduced to? As a child, was he mentored in any way by a caring role model?

There are also firmly rooted personal belief-systems (the “tapes” we play in our heads), the power of which cannot be underestimated.

-which has the identical effect of NOT having that power, wouldn’t you agree? People brought up in negative circumstances/enviros need intervention of a special sort to literally expose them to this knowledge. Without the knowledge, they are effectively entrapped by their life circumstances.

To return to MILO’s subject of Chosen Paths: One cannot choose that of which he is unaware.

I have seen both sides of this all the time. I have many friends with mormon backrounds and a part of this faith is you do not drink coffee… i guess i tempted them to their braking point and they tried it… all did not like the taste. people build many biases in their childhood. Biases as we all know have a huge effect on a man’s behavior. I have also seen people live their whole life in contracdiction of thier child hood. but this too could very well be an effect of a man’s childhood. i am a firm believer in [size=150]“the end depends upon the begining”[/size]

I’ll relate to you a story and you tell me what you think will happen to a child in these circumstances.

A black baby girl is born in the ghettos of the United States to a 12 year old mother. The girl is raised in this ghetto by her grandmother. While growing up she is sexualy abused and assaulted by her uncle and other males. At 12 years of age she gives birth herself to a stillborn baby. At 14 she runs away and ends up in a mental institution.

Now without reading any further based upon the circumstances of this person what do you think the odds are of her having a good or even normal life? Do you think such a person may overcome this enviroment? Well I’ll tell you who this person is if you allready don’t know. Oprah Winfrey, one of the wealthiest and successful women in America.

I’ll share my opinion by sharing my experience. I was brought up in a very conservative, very family-oriented, very gender-roled and machismo community. I was not expected to have my own career and was brought up to marry a rich and conservative man of my own ethnicity. I was expected to value both Jesus and BMWs (yeah let’s not start on that one, just accept it).

However, I left for college (here’s personal choice number 1: I defied the expectations and desires of my home community and left, as a female, to another state to go to college. Where did that come from? Perhaps the romantic fantasy lives of my favorite book and movie characters, given that I actually knew nobody who left my hometown for college and had nobody in my life at the time pushing me to leave. I can only say that I desperately wanted to go out into the world on my own and be fabulous, even though I knew nobody else who had and had no idea what that actually meant.)

At college, all of my childhood assumptions were challenged. I went through a very major introspective process that lasted my entire undergraduate experience whereby I consciously let go of many old values and replaced them with the ones that I was suddenly exposed to and intrinsically agreed with.

Was that totally on my own? Was it a new socialization? Was it a little of both?

I feel that I am now an amalgam of my experiences, including childhood, post-adolescence, and adulthood.

I am ever-changing and have found throughout the years that I am bound to my childhood assumptions to the degree to which I have yet to consciously acknowledge and reflect on those assumptions. Things in life challenge them. I don’t doubt that there are things still left unchallenged that are totally modelled from my childhood that I have yet to even realize.

At the same time, I didn’t let go of everything. Some things I very consciously kept because I still agreed with those values (granted they weren’t many, but there were a few).

So, given my experience, I’d say that we default to our childhood socialization until we acknowledge and reflect on and challenge those assumptions (which I would argue necessitates some other perspective to enter your awareness somehow - be it a person, a book, a song, another situation).

Wow.

At last I have found a forum where I’m not the sharpest tool.

UndergroundMan, very good - you had me going! Very nice illustration.

molelove, odd name (heh, I’m one to speak, huh?) and a letterperfect post. Excellent grammatical prowess and prose structure on display.

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tyler, you’re evil. “I have many friends with mormon backrounds and a part of this faith is you do not drink coffee… i guess i tempted them to their braking point and they tried it”

Well that’s kind of a mean thing to do but moreover, they must not have been very devout in their convictions, for imbibition of coffee, alcohol, etc. is a serious big deal for those people.

“all did not like the taste.”

Black coffee is just horrible, horrible stuff. I love it. shrugs

I am hopelessly addicted and waste approx. $30 a month on Taster’s Choice.

lol

I think that I have no choice about what I do, but I feel as though I do.
As far as I can see my choices have to come out of who I am, which is a mixture of what I have inherited and what has happened directly to me. I believe that everything that has happened since the Big Bang followed on as a logical result of what went before. However, there is far too much information involved for me to process to be able to say what will happen next with complete accuracy.
I feel as though I have a choice, and for me this is more important, since it is how I feel about life that makes it worth living.
With regard to our past conditioning, it is my experience that it is possible to heal those things that limit our lives, and so enable us to feel freer.

today foreshadows tomorrow

I’m actually going to have to comment on this with a personal story of my own, and probably one of the most profound things I have ever heard regarding this topic.

My friend James grew up in a household with a verbally abusive father. His father was a chaplain in the military, and he had god shoved down his throat for most of his life, while simultaneous being verbally abused and sometimes physically. His mother was Korean, and his father forbade her to speak it or teach the kids Korean because he didn’t want them to be able to speak in a language he didn’t understand. He ran away a few times, ended up doing petty theft for a living, and eventually was arrested for quite a few things, which included a felony conviction on his record. For those of you outside the states, having a felony conviction is tantamount to a death sentence in the job industry. It’s almost impossible to find work, regardless of how long ago it was.

With all of that added up, I had made the comment that it was incredible that he ended up doing as well as he had. He had a good life, a great job that he loved, and was dating one of my best friends.

Then he gave me an incredulous look and said, “Why the hell would you think that, I’ve always had my brain.”

–Kissa

Not to brush aside the truth of that statement Kissa, but just curious: Why did it strike you as profound? It seems pretty obvious to me. (again, just asking 8))