The formative years

I have wondered as to at what age period does a person learn the values and principles that they believe in for their lives. There obviously will not be only a single time period as all people learn throughout their lives and the events around them shape or add new values and principles. But what is the most important time period, the most essential time period? I was not sure for a long time, but when I met my school friends this time in Bangalore and as we discussed a lot of stuff, I realised that almost all of us share similar values and principles. I studied with these people during my 7th, 8th and a couple of months of 9th standard before I went to another school. There are so many similarities among us even today. Starting from: none of us have a girlfriend/boyfriend to we all loved the school times. We all still meet after a decade or so whenever it is possible. We don't have a lot of day to day things to talk about, yet we meet. Most of us have lived outside our home and have gone through some of the life's hurdles. We all value our old friendships a lot. We all respect some of our teachers who taught us. If we were to need help, we wouldn't mind asking each other. The strange part is that we all have our own set of problems, but we usually don't talk about it in the group, but only with the one or two closest of friends during the school days. We all would love to go out in a trip sometime together, but as of now that seems remote. Coming back to the topic, I think the age of realising, imbibing values and standing for principles starts when a person goes through some tough times and is forced to make a hard decision or forced to do something against one's wishes or when someone who you respect a lot says something, and you totally accept it. I am not sure which of these it is for my schoolmates, but for me personally, the challenges came and I was able to realise the values and stand for principles during the times I was with these schoolmates of mine.