As soon as we are born we start to experience life and we start to "survive". Our senses are filled with whatever surrounds us. These experiences are pleasant or unpleasant. By nature we are the kind of creatures who don't like to suffer, so we are constantly looking for Pleasant Experiences and trying to avoid unpleasant experiences. To be able to do that we carefully observe our environment.

There are certain things we can already observe in our environment from a very young age. To simplify things here I just talk about people and objects.

There are millions of people and objects surround us. We can notice that some of them are almost permanent or just slowly change. Think about your family or your neighborhood. Some of them constantly change. Think about what you see on television or passengers on a train. By recognizing this we learn to trust in those things which are more permanent. This gives a sense of security in "space".

Another thing we learn that we can "predict" the future to a certain level. This is because things don't change, at least most of the time suddenly. This gives a sense of security in time. If our environment would constantly and rapidly change that would be unbearable.

We also notice that there are many similar objects we don't have to learn about each individual person or object which belongs to a group. Think about a nation, or cars.

It also helps that we learn to imitate others around us. That's how we learn how to use a spoon. Sometimes we don't even know why we do things, we just follow others.

Since pleasant experiences give happiness and satisfaction we use our knowledge to get more of these experiences. We learn early that they don't come easy, it takes certain effort to get satisfied. Think about when you go to the gym or when you finish a project. At a very early age we also find out that there is always help you just have to learn how to ask for it. Think about a crying baby or visiting your doctor.