the community you keep

We're very late in having seen Million Dollar Baby. Surely it will test your convictions. Instead of stepping into the fierce and complicated discussion on euthanasia though, I'd like to propose a question to all of you concerning a larger theme in the background of the movie. How does the community you keep shape your view of the world, of self, and of the point to life? If she had been in a different kind of community might her outlook have been different? Or should our view of present circumstances be the final arbiter, as she allowed them to be? Discuss.