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Do we live our own lives? Or do we live the life as society dictates?

free will

nature vs nurture

genetics

epigenetics

society

understand

tynamite

This is a good question! I will break it up into two parts.
The answer for this question is both, but if I answered with that one word, I would get flagged, even though I'm completely right! Get ready for the long answer.

I have completed a BTEC Level 3 Health and Social Care course, so I can effectively answer this question. I got 2 distinctions and a merit.

Nature vs Nature

Nature says that genetics are the fate to someone’s life.
Nuture says that the environment is the fate to someone’s life.
They both shape who we are.

Genetics affects you greatly relatively to the people within your proximity. Your environment affects you greatly in relatively to all the places you have never been. The minute you make Kanye West or Russell Brand born working class instead of middle class, he might not of ever got famous, but his good looks would have got him successes in life. I've just given you a really good example. If you want to know more about this, go and research it. You could get 14 people to research this, and they all would give you completely different essays.

Free Will or Lack of Choices

Do we operate with our free will; or do we only do the things we do, because our circumstances don't give us any better choices? This question has made by brother unsure about whether free will truly exists. In society the government can control people through the media to manipulate them. People can be a product of their circumstances.

Without getting into too much detail, as this answer is long enough as it is - the more privileged you are in life, the more free will you have.

My brother is a hypnotist who knows all about how suggestion, the media and social pressures can manipulate people into operating without a choice. He is smarter than me, and unlike me, he is not prone to being manipulated by the news. I believe nearly everything I read and hear in the news, and he's more intelligent than me, and has more emotional intelligence. Me and him have debates that last a minimum of 5 hours. I could ask him this question to get his different viewpoint, but I don't feel a need to. No discussion of free will is complete, without the story of Genie.

------> Genie

The most tragic life of all time is the story of Genie, a feral child who lived all her life in a room for the first 12 years of her life. When police found her, she was unable to speak English, and emotionally scarred. All that was in her room was a potty and a chair for her to sit on.

Me and my brother were having a debate about whether free will truly exists. My brother said that he doesn't know whether free will really exists, as people can be programmed through hypnotism, suggestion, and social pressures. Me and him agreed that people can do things in life, not because they chose to, but because they had no choice.

I said that Genie never had the chance to practise her free will in her entire life, as every choice she made in her life, she was forced to do it, and most times she had no choices.

I said that the biggest choice she had in her life was to choose to not talk after ever again for the rest of her life even without her abuser around.
My brother said that the biggest choice she had in her life was when the psychologists asked her what food she wanted to eat.
We came to the conclusion that Genie did not have a chance to exercise her free will, and that she had no real choices in her life.
I asked my brother again if he believed we have free will, and he said that he doesn't know. I can understand that, as people aren't given choices for the actions most of the time.

===========================

If you was to go by the story of Genie, it would be safe and understandable for you to believe that free will doesn't exist. It is common belief that free will does exist. If you lived a life as a person born into slavery, the Holocaust, or a brainwashing program, you would be forgiven for saying that free will doesn't exist.

Now it's time to go for a new story. This story is about me. Yes there is a point to this.

------> What is it like to be suicidal?

Keep in mind that to be suicidal, you most likely have to be depressed as well. Please read my answer for What does depression feel like? before continuing. I was nearly depressed. I was on the borderline. I would hate to know what it was like to be truly depressed.

Becoming suicidal, starts with a normal act of thinking, as you would usually do. If you're depressed, your mental state isn't going to be as it should be. What happens is that you feel that there is an imaginary ceiling above you, that lowers itself so it's in your piriminal vision, even when you're looking down. You never knew that this ceiling existed prior to this. You don't like this ceiling, and it makes you feel how you've never felt before. You can still do all the things as you would normally do, but there is something uncomfortable and saddening about having the ceiling there. It makes you feel many things at once, and most of all, you know it shouldn't be there. You feel claustrophobic even though you've got room to move around. You feel followed even though you're not being watched. You feel that your horizon is diluted, even though it isn't.

What you can't take away however, is that this is the truly unique time, where you feel that your life is as resourceful as a video game character. You don't think you can go outside and seize the day. You don't think you can go outside and do anything. You've reached the end of the line, and can't do anything useful for yourself in your life. You're at a loss. The sky is gone, so not even that can tell you how to feel. The weather is as influencial to your mood as a traffic light going green.

You then go outside (or maybe not) to have a walk to see if it will clear your mood. You find it does the opposite. You then find a metronome ticking away in your head. It starts out on the left which was the position it always was in. Every time it moves to the right, you start to have positive thoughts. You like these newfound positive thoughts. The metronome in your head quickly goes back to left again. The metronome happens for hours over a long period of time.

Eventually the metronome between your usual self and positivity becomes too much to bear. It becomes an annoyance. The metronome has happened for so long, that the positivity on the right, doesn't do you any good anymore. You're so sick of this switching, that the positivity you have on the metronome right swing, doesn't do you wonders anymore. Now you feel worse than you ever did when the metronome started. It's very resource intensive on your mind. The positivity is still there, but it's in the midst.

Now what you have to do, is find the positivity that you have; and latch onto that, pulling yourself up onto those handlebars, to get yourself out of suicidal thinking.

Not everyone can do that, as not everyone is a strong person. It's a very hard thing for someone to do. Before you comment with sympathetic replies, I did not really want to kill myself, and I had no intention to and I never contemplated it. People have killed themselves for more and less than what I've gone though. If I was going to do it, I would have done it years ago.

==========================
I've got a question to ask you.
Was I excercising my free will to get myself out of depression and suicide?
If you believed in determinism, where free will doesn't exist, that we're all a product of society, who wants to maximise their interest - you would say that I either killed myself if I someone else gave this answer about me, or that I should have killed myself years ago. To live in a predetermined world, I would already be dead by now, for the mere fact of how I felt.

I will now go back to what I said earlier.
The more priviledged you are, the more free will you have.
If you're Paris Hilton, you can do more with your life and choose more options, than if you're homeless. Are you going to say that a homeless man has no free will?

My brother would be debating with me about how people are a product of society. He would say that people only behave how they're behaving some or most times, because that's what society tells them to do, so they're not making a real informed choice. Talking about collectivism, that is another topic for another answer. That is outside the scope of this question. You would have to ask another question for that.

Collectivism is a social outlook of how people group themselves together and how they are grouped. Collectivism looks at which groups people belong to, whether that’s sex, tribe, family, nation, race, and earning bracket.

This question looks at things from a micro level instead of a macro level. How people relate with people, not society. This question is about Interactionism.

Interactionists look at how people interact with each other; they study interactions and is short for Symbolic Interactionism.