You, me, everyone is conditioned by the society that we grew up in as children.
The environment into which each of us is born is unique – different to everyone else on the planet through its climate, history, culture, family shape, or sibling sequence. As babies, if our clan rejects us, we die, and therefore we are hard wired with a desire for acceptance. We mimic – taking particular notice of the behaviours of the grown-ups around us, and conforming to fit in.
Even before we can talk, we begin to believe and value what our society does. These go in ‘unfiltered’, we’re not judging at this age, we are absorbing.
Children are likely to have the same beliefs about religion as their parents and vote the same way. They learn the things that their parents determine to be useful or interesting, so our early skillset is programmed by the people around us.
All this comes together to shape our sense of identity; the things we say about ourselves (to our self). It’s a list of “I am’s”. This whole process whereby the significant people around us shape who we are, is termed ‘social conditioning’.
We will see, a little later, how significant your personal social conditioning is on your daily habits, and to what extent you have already broken from the conditioning of your early years. Consciously choosing your own path is known as self-determination and could also be the sub-title of this book.