If you study philosophy, you learn about existentialism, a school of thought that claims because people are entirely free, they are responsible for how far they go in life.
In a nutshell, existentialism, pronounced "eg-sih-STEN-shul-ism," asks what it means to be human when individuals have the power to shape their lives without being absolutely sure of what is good and what is evil. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are usually regarded as the founders of existentialism, but other famous existentialists include Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir.
