Shaping Life

The factors that shape your life?
You may have the standard answer "peers and parents," but really, there are SO many possibilities that shape your life, including your own, personal experience, government, school, advertising, etc. What are the other factors (other than peers and parents) that shape your life and how?

The media is the largest contributor to my personality. School shapes me, it trains me to function in the country run buy our government. Which leads to another big contributor to my personalty, and life, my peers. Second only to the media they get their influence from, i can determine what is wrong with my life and personality by taking my issue and comparing my reaction to a random variety of cliques made up of 5-10 people, ages 16-18, then finding the mean. Usually i do that part subconsciously.
Seriously, big life influences are whatever culture i am surrounded by growing up. Whether it makes for a complete revolt against that culture or a strong devotion to it, that is one. It can be tied back to peers and parents, but what cant? Peers and parents are vessels for the influence of the government and the media. For me personally, books have had a huge impact on my life. They aren't quite media because they are from so many time periods, and the topics are sporadic enough that the influence doesn't make me imitate pop culture completely.