conditioning, conditions and circumstances
I am reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. And I come across the following saying that I do not quite understand.
They are page 71.
They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior.
...
Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us.
Could you please explain the meaning of circumstances, conditions and conditioning in the above?
Thanks.
Circumstances and conditions are very similar, but not identical in this context:
Circumstances- "The situation that I'm in": the things that exist that have an affect upon me: "I'm weak", "I'm poor", "I'm unemployed".
Conditions- "The status of things around me": Like the weather outside, the things that exist in the broader world that have an effect on my situation: "It's a bad time to start a business", "Nobody can afford this kind of product right now.."
Finally, conditioning is in the classic sense of learned psychological response, "how I've been trained or ingrained to react to external events"
To re-write his sentence (albeit less elegantly ) "They don't blame the unique circumstances that they personally are in, they don't blame the conditions in the world around around them, and they don't blame "the events that have taught them to behave a certain way..."