Leaving India has been a relief in many ways for me. There were so many things that would hit my self esteem, sense of control and knowledge of my own opinions. I would easily get manipulated by people around me and get influenced. Had to keep struggling to get my original self back each time. Here in the US, my old conditioning at all levels(people, family, environment) has been weakened and people here aren't as judgemental and I feel a sense of freedom.About the problem:
Examples:
1. A person is mostly pessimistic, keeps on whining and lives with a scarcity mentality. Also whines about reasonably medium term goals like getting done with studies, his social circle or about getting a job. So even if you are originally in a good mood, if you interact with this person your mood gets affected to an extent and loses its spark. If you concentrate and maintain high awareness on this fact then you can reduce the damage to a good extent. But the damage nevertheless still takes place. You can just intensely watch it to minimize its bad effects. This is about mood. Probably happens to many people who are reasonably sensitive to their environment.
2. Another issue is that of manipulation of opinions. This I think is not as common. Like if someone says "Ohh this color looks miserable, this design is miserable, this item is miserable, this particular job description is terrible, our lives are so terrible(when there is common context)" it generally distorts my view too and it takes me a while to recover. It affects me at a level beyond my intellect, maybe directly hits my subconscious. I tried to address this issue by reading more and more and getting a ton of knowledge, perspectives etc. But somehow, it did not make much difference. I would still get affected quite a lot. I think its not really the content but a direct transmutation of the emotion itself. Maybe its that person's emotion that viscerally passes over to me. I somehow don't seem to have much conscious control over it. All I can do is watch it intently and remind myself that I would get back my original thoughts soon.
Theory:
Its super uncomfortable when the people you interact with, polarize you into into their moods, opinions, frameworks, viewpoints etc. And somehow I cannot control this much even if I pay attention. I accept whatever they say or do at a subconscious level. This feels very creepy because the force of my will power and critical mind cannot easily stop this. I think distrusting myself has become a subconscious habit developed from childhood. Its like I have to violently rationalize with myself and even after that it takes some time for me to stabilize and get my original views back. While I'm in this internal battle, its like firefighting within and this is like a desperate attempt I make each time to not lose myself. I still cannot figure out why this happens to me. Whenever I read intellectual and insightful material i'm get pretty convinced and my views totally change. But if i don't read any such material for long enough time, my opinions, behavior just goes back to its old conditioning and gets continuously affected by people with whom i interact with regularly. So I need to keep myself from moving into other people opinions, way of life and beliefs and totally lose myself in the process.
This internal struggle that I need to do to preserve my sense of self control and beliefs is like a virus makes your PC work at 1/4th the speed it could. I could be so much better as a person if I did not have this problem. Maybe I'm hyper sensitive to my environment and people's emotions. I think there is a psychological term to explain this, don't remember right now. On the brighter side of things, its not uncommon for gifted people to face such issues :). Their hypersensitivity gives them great advantages and some unusual problems. I'm working towards finding a solution for this.
http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/why-you-cant-help-believing-everything-you-read.php
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