[Iwantone2]

Originally Posted by 1bad65

Not true.

Maybe the OP could use the Bulger family as an example. Of the six children in the family, two stand out. James 'Whitey' Bulger has lived a life of crime, done prison time, is currently on the FBIs most wanted list, and has been profiled on America's Most Wanted. His brother William has lived an honest life, he is the former President of the Massachusetts State Senate and the University of Massachusetts.

again, "Nature vs. Nurture"...

Originally Posted by JMM1181

‘we see and understand things not as they are but as we are'

I'll give this a shot.

All of life is a projection of what is in us, and while things may 'appear' to be objective, in reality, we are always peering out at the world through human eyes. Whether we are looking through the lens of a high-powered microscope or telescope reaching into the heavens we are still peering out through human eyes. All of what we encounter can only come out of what is already within us, Carl Jung used to say that "what irritates us most about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves," and the term 'projection' is now a well-known psychological term, as we only project content that exists already within our own psychic content unto the world around us in order to be understand the world and our relationship to it. We cannot be separate from what is 'out there' as much as we cannot be separate from our own consciousness, we can employ terms like 'objectivity' but these are inherently invalid from a psychological standpoint.

Much of this borders on the psychology of an individual, people will always come to describe the exact same object in different ways- all of which are creative expressions which arise from the material they have to select from within themselves. Another interesting quote from a famed philosopher James Allen who once wrote, “Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him.” What he is saying is that what happens in our life do not reflect a new expression of ourselves, rather, they reveal what was already inside. When we are angry and blow up on the guy driving next to us for cutting us off, we are revealing what's inside- not necessarily what was done to us.

Even those known as spiritual teachers or gurus understand that there is nothing that readily distinguishes them from any other person- they have bad things happen to them just as any other person would encounter, the difference isn't in what happens to them but how they respond to what happens to them. Where as many would react with anger, they react with peace.

It's not what happens to you in life, it's how you process it and respond to it- that will tell you a lot more about yourself than anything else. It's easy to be a great person when things are going great and circumstances cooperate, but the real test is being that same good person when things are not great and you're being squeezed from all angles of life- it's at that time when you'll realize, circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.

wow...thanks for putting the rest of us to shame

just kidding, very well written