How much did things that happened in the past influence your future?

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99%
Everyone always has this idealistic advice that you should just get over your past, thinking the past should be irrelevant, etc., and they're discompassionate toward or unaccepting of those who can't transcend their past. because they think it's their fault for not pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. The truth is that people are highly conditionable beings, especially during our early, more formative years, and there are some conditions you just can't get over any more than you can grow a new arm. Trauma, for example, is even known to science to permanently rewire a person's brain. So, one's conditioning is actually a part of their circumstances, in the same sense that, e.g., having AIDS can be, in that their psychological context is a very influential part of their reality. All those people with their great advice and/or their judgments have the luxury of not being in the shoes of the people they're judging or advising...