Damned lucky.......................................

We do largely create our own feelings, and we do so by learning (from our parents and others) and by inventing (in our own heads) our own sane and foolish thoughts.
     Create?   Yes, we create.  We consciously and unconsciously choose to think, to feel, and to act in certain self-helping and self-harming ways.
     Not totally.  Not all together.  Not by a long shot!  For we have great help, if you want to call it that, from both our heredity and our environment.
     No, we are hardly born with specific thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.  Nor does our environment directly make us act or feel.  But our genes and our social upbringing give us strong tendencies to do (and enjoy) what we do.  And although we usually go along with (or indulge in) these tendencies, we don't exactly have to.  We definitely don't.
     Not that we have unlimited choice or free will.  Heck, no.  We can't, no matter how hard we try, flap our hands and fly.  We can't easily stop our various addictions to such substances as cigarettes, food, and alcohol, or to habits such as procrastination.  We have one hell of a time changing any of our fixed habits.  Alas, we do!
     But we can choose to change ourselves remarkably.  We are able to alter our strongest thoughts, feelings, and actions.  Why?  Because unlike dogs, monkeys, and cockroaches, we are human.  As human beings, we are born with (and can escalate) a trait that other creatures rarely possess:  the ability to think about our thinking.  We are not only natural philosophers, we can philosophize about our philosophy, reason about our reasoning.
     Which is damned lucky!

-Albert Ellis, as excerpted from here