What's shaped you?

Dear Reader

Today's question I want to pose to you is ... 

What is it that has shaped you?

What has happened in your life to make you who you are today?

What have been your crucible moments? 
(A crucible moment being a situation of severe trial, or in which different elements interact, leading to the creation of something new.)

No matter who you are, there have been events that have happened in your life that have moulded you as a person - that have changed your course and that have influenced your actions and decisions.  Be that conscious or not - they have happened.
I recall the first time I was given the task of recording what I felt were the crucible events that have happened in my life - both good and bad.  This was an exciting, daunting and difficult task.  
I was able to go through and easily highlight all the great things that have happened to me; meeting my husband, getting married, the birth of both our children, graduating from university, watching my father's face when I got back on my horse and jumped that fence after she (that bloody horse who I am sure hated me) threw me off (again).
But then I needed to go back and record the events that I would rather forget; my fathers near death accident that I narrowly avoided being involved in, the death of my baby brother, heartbreak, arguments and falling outs with loved ones, health issues that have caused numerous operations and hospital stays, losing important people in our lives, failing to protect those we love from hurting.  These are the things we want to forget.  The things we don't want to bring up from the back of our minds - even though they are etched in our hearts forever, lurking just below the surface.
These are just as influential in shaping us as the good things that have happened.  All of these things are what make us the person we are.

What has happened to you in your life to mould the person you are today?

One thing that I find interesting is listening to people who give excuses for their actions or their situations.  The fact that they blame 'what's happened to them in the past' or 'how they were brought up' for the situations they find themselves in later on in their lives.  
If that was the case, then how do you explain individuals who have beaten adversity to succeed in their lives?  How do you explain people like Oprah, Albert Einstein, Franklin Roosevelt, Victor Frankl or  Frederick Douglass? (Just to name just a few of the people who came up when I googled "people who have overcome adversity to succeed")
How is it that two different people, who have had the exact same upbringing, share the same blood and have been given the same nurturing, can become such different human beings - with differing morals, values and attitudes?  What is it that makes us who we are?  I really do believe that it's those crucible moments.  Lots and lots of large and small moments, events, experiences and incidents that form our beings.  This is what has influenced and created the person you are right now, the individual who is sitting there reading this right now.  

I suppose what I'm really trying to say is that we don't know what has happened in a person's life to make them who they are, to make them think what they think, believe what they believe and do what they do.  
Also we need to remember that maybe people aren't always exactly as they seem - that whole 'don't judge a book by its cover' thing rings true.  
How on earth can we just look at a person and think we know all about them?  
How can we look at someone and judge what they have done without understanding why, without understanding them?  
How can we simply pigeon hole people without bothering to understand them?
We have no idea what has happened in a person's life and what experiences they have had to create the person standing in front of us.  
We don't know what they have seen, heard, felt or done.  
And ... until we bother to find out then maybe we just need to hold back on that judgement.
Cause we sure as hell ain't perfect!