You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?
W. Clement Stone
That's the quote... most people take it out of context to say I'm not responsible for who I am after my after the age of innocence life. While growing up in one place or many places, being abused or being babied, or neglected by our peers or accepted and put on a pedestal it's about owning every moment that shapes us what makes us at 18, 21, 25 or 50 for our mid life crisis. We are always changing evolving. Saying things like I am my mother's daughter and refusing to accept change is like giving up on any room for growth. For instance that phrase is from this movie Spanglish, "Narrator: I've been overwhelmed by your encouragement to apply to your university and your list of scholarships available to me. Though, as I hope this essay shows, your acceptance, while it would thrill me, will not define me. My identity rests firmly and happily on one fact: I am my mother's daughter. Thank you, Cristina Moreno". This whole movie baffled me as I sat there and watched it. It had good a psychological mapping.
All this being said if you choose to only accept your past as the future mapping for your now life, you haven't grown. You haven't let life mold you into something wonderful. I'm going to refuse to accept I am my father's son because I have 2 fathers who are wonderful fathers, neither are perfect but they're pretty great now.
I only hope to be something like them when I'm 50 something and 70 something. I'm my own person, how I live is a struggle day in and day out but growing is something I want to do. I hope you choose to keep growing and encouraging your friends to grow.