Product Of My Environment OR Personal Choice

It is said that where you come from determines how far one can go in life. Others say its what you choose to do that determines one's fate. Well poverty stricken neighborhoods have raised some of the biggest drug dealers in the world. They also have given us some of the most influential leaders this country has ever seen. So one must ask how is this so? How are you able to put two people in the same environment and get two different results? One must question their upbringing. What they were both taught? Who or what influenced their decisions? Did they choose their own paths or go down the one given to them. Influence, whether positive or negative, has NO hold on personal choice. At the end of the day its YOUR CHOICE. People always say, "did he put a gun to yo
head and MAKE YOU do it?" Even in that statement a CHOICE has to be made. Am I going to allow this to happen to me or am I going to fight? These are questions you ask yourself. It is also said that you do better when you know better. So do you say those that do better sought knowledge and those that don't didn't? That's a choice also.. to seek knowledge or not. So to say I am a product of my environment is an excuse to say I didn't try. I don't want to be that guy that didn't try.