Throughout life, we adopt Habits of Mind from people of authority, from peers, from society (Mezirow).  We adopt them as our own.  Some are good, some are bad, some impede growth, and some help us thrive.  We are racist, sexist, optimists, and self loathers, all because we internalized both inferior and superior opinions and attitudes regarding the world and ourselves.  The older we are, the more we have.  These Habits of Mind coalesce, creating our personal frame of reference, which determines just how we see interpret our world.