My interest for psychology probably stems from the fact that I’m not the most social person and have found it hard to fit in social situations with a high social dynamic. For some reason people in high school felt attracted to me when they had personal challenges to discuss and I enjoyed the faith that people put in me. Also I have been a member of an online community where people with a diverse range of psychological “anomalies” gathered. I hence had the pleasure to meet many special people and their stories and in this way tried to learn more about the challenges that people are facing. Challenges which are often suppressed or hidden in everyday life and may show up by the guy who is whistling all the time in the shop, or the woman who has to touch every light pole as she walks down the street. But most often the challenges are not even visible, which makes it hard for other to understand why these people are “strange”.
So I have spend a lot of time reading about general psychology, different disorders and strategies for dealing with different situations. Mostly I’m driven by the urge to learn more about myself. Every time I read a psychology book I feel I understand myself a little more. Understand why I have acted the way I did in different situations. So often we think that we made a rational decision and that we would make the same decision regardless the circumstances, but I think that’s not true. The more I learn about psychology and the more I’m observing myself, I get aware of how involuntary biased our decisions are toward solutions which will maintain the status quo. Sometimes this is quite clearly visible, other times this fact pops up in a complex way, but it’s always there.
Also my interest stems from the fact that people say about people, derivating from the norm, that they cannot understand them. What does a murderer think? Why do some people prefer to live on the street instead of having a “normal” life? Why are some people unsatisfied even if they seem to have all you can ever wish for? Through studying psychology I feel I have build up an understanding for many different people and I enjoy this very much since it shows me how colourful this world is. There’s no good or bad, not even shades of gray. There are circumstances and choices.
Another aspect of psychology is the field of development psychology, the psychology of a human in development, from being in it’s mothers belly via being a child and teenager and becoming a grown up and getting older. What do we learn when? What abilities does a child in a certain age obtain? These questions are even more relevant to me as I’m training kids on inline skates. They develop so differently and being able to track how their skills develop is one of the greatest joys, knowing that I’m making a difference for them and that I can influence how they understand their surroundings. Observing a child and understanding the errors they make often blows me away. The misconceptions kids have about the world tell so much about the way they are raised and the way the society influences them.