The word psychology derives from the roots psyche (soul) and logos (science). In its literal meaning, psychology is the science of the soul. Yet, beyond being a scientific discipline, it is also an undeniable part of our everyday lives. Each of us, often without realizing, applies psychology when analyzing people, during and after conflicts, or even from the simplest observations that lead us to make psychological inferences. In other words, even if we have not yet encountered psychology in its scientific form, we are all familiar with it through its experiential side. And of course, getting to know it a little more closely does no harm.
The Experiential Side of Psychology in Daily Life
Since psychology is human-centered, its experiential aspect inevitably integrates into our lives. Bringing psychology into daily life requires observing, inferring, and discovering. Our observations of people and events, and the inferences we derive from them, give us the opportunity to discover ourselves and others. These discoveries help us form the lines and boundaries that stand between us and other people.
Throughout the day, we examine and analyze everything we encounter. The opinions we hold about our analyses shape our sense of right and wrong, while the way we perceive events helps us build the boundaries that include ourselves and others. All these drawn lines determine where we stand and where others should stand in our lives. Though it is possible to categorize these boundaries, making clear distinctions is not: there are red, unbreachable lines, and gray, flexible ones.
Red and Gray Lines: The Foundations of Boundaries
So, what makes these lines red or gray?
At the foundation of all our human relationships lie our family relationships. From birth, we experience countless “firsts” within the place we call family: the first model of man and woman, the first romantic relationship, the first friendship, the first parenting, the first teacher figure, the first traces of affection, and the first marks of anger. The red and unbreachable boundaries often stem from these memories we have unconsciously recorded since birth. That is why they are not open to much criticism, and changing them is difficult—sometimes even painful—because they are fixed patterns that have already become part of our character.
For instance, the boundaries of trust and respect, though different for each person, share one common feature: they are unbreachable and non-negotiable. Gray and flexible boundaries, on the other hand, are those we consciously develop with the awareness we gain as we step outside our families. Because they are consciously formed and newly acquired, they are open to criticism and can be stretched. They change depending on the people and the circumstances.
Disagreements with others about an uncomfortable issue, for example, can fall into this category—tolerable depending on the situation and the person. In short, as we observe people and events, we make both correct and incorrect inferences, and in doing so, we begin to build the skeleton of our character.
Character, Communication, and Self-Discovery
While making these inferences and observations, we are not only applying psychology experientially but also shaping healthy or unhealthy communication depending on how we approach it. And all our human relationships rest upon whether this communication is healthy or not.
In conclusion, every observation we make in life eventually returns to us; accumulated observations and the ideas we develop upon them form our boundaries, and those boundaries shape who we are. The person we become is the very one who manages all of our relationships. Of course, we may not always communicate healthily or make the right inferences, but character development begins with recognizing those mistaken inferences.
What truly matters is not avoiding mistakes, but having the maturity to notice them. And this, after all, is what life is about: build your character, make mistakes, and grow.