Connection in growing up environment + a person's mind

Today I just posted this in Facebook:

"A person's growing up environment, will greatly, greatly, shape his/her mentality, subconscious beliefs and outlook in life. Any negative traits will have to be changed through constant awareness (outside and inside) and understanding of oneself, and great effort to transform the genetic beliefs that are deeply rooted in one's subconscious mind."

Today I have this sudden awareness, or realization, that a person's growing up environment, actually shapes the entire person's thinking and mindset, values, and whatever that is important in life.

My colleagues had a small difference of opinions during lunch today. One of them say that being financially able to support the entire family every weekend to have good meals in restaurants, and financially free, is one trait of being successful. But the other colleague didn't agree with him. He says that eating good meals and being rich, is not a way to state whether one is successful at all. They were at odds with one another.

While the one that feels richness is a successful trait is confused about why the other person wouldn't think so too, I casually mentioned that the other guy, come from a rather wealthy Indonesian family. He probably sees and knows dozens of rich friends, who maybe are lazy, but are rich. And naturally, he would not think that they are successful. And eating at restaurants and paying for whole family of 6, is already a common sight and a must-do to him, that he hardly consider this anything at all. 

When I said this, my colleague suddenly realized that the other guy, has a very different growing up environment, and thus thinking is obviously shaped in a different way then his. He suddenly saw that, to the other guy, because being rich is already a pre-requisite, he wouldn't consider that as anything special.

Interestingly, as he said this, I also come to another realization.

This colleague of mine, when he was young, his parents was not rich, scraping by, but definitely not rich. At a young age, he promised himself that he would earn lots of money to break this chain of poverty in his family. His whole life, he desires for wealth creation.

Whereas the other colleague, whom said richness is not a successful trait, leaves his wealthy family to work on a regular pay in Singapore, working very hard on this art and achieving quite some recognition on his artwork as an artist. His whole life is devoted to being a great artist.

We can see that each up growing environment, has greatly shaped, in fact, has shaped, almost 80% or more, one's thinking in life. Their goals has been shaped while they were young, perhaps even before they reach 10 years old. It's no wonder that they always say, that we all have our destinies planned out already before we were born.

So are we shaped for life the moment we are born?

With great awareness, one can sees this, and change at will, to whichever trait that comes from genetic sources. But there are a few conditions that I can think of right off the tip of my fingers:

1) one must be aware of oneself (thinking and actions)

2) one must be aware of the right and good principles

3) one must be impartial and open-minded to all circumstances

4) but in order to be open-minded yet upright and strong, one has to have strong basic foundations (values) as a person

5) constant coaching from enlightened beings to be opened-minded to outside factors which let one compare to inner values

Here's a case to further emphasis on this statement that I posted in facebook:

I have a friend and we got know a couple together. And she would tell me, that the guy, was ill-treating the girl in the relationship in our meetings with them. And I wondered why she said that, or that I would think she probably is a tad too sensitive, and over reacting to it as I don't feel so much to such an extent of ill-treating. Later did I realized the reason, when she told me, that before her dad married her mom, his dad actually liked another lady, but because of arranged marriages, they got married. And her whole life, she saw how her dad ill-treated her mom, that she begin to distrust men in general. She even prefer ladies to men in relationships. This subconscious belief is so deeply rooted into her subconscious mind that she has somehow, shaped her whole life to these exact conditions she saw when she was growing up.

This I believe, is a very powerful awareness. If one can have the mindfulness to be aware of one's resulted actions in life, and really sees it, one can change his/her destiny. With great effort, one can most certainly turn one's life around into the most fulfilling way to his/her own values in life.