Psychology is like a long journey- the more you read; the closer you reach the destination of knowing yourself. – Nidhi Dahiya

Be Real, Not Perfect: Series by Nidhi Dahiya (Chapter 1)

After reading a non-fiction book, I thought of writing my own stuff on Psychology. And, next thing in my mind was, “Why do I want to write?” When I know it’s tremendously difficult, need emotional efforts, have to spend tons of time and most importantly, I have not done this before. Also spilling true intentions to the world through words is hard, especially scientific things.

Psychology is like a long journey- the more you read; the closer you reach the destination of knowing yourself.

As we know, Psychology is a science which develops a broad understanding of human nature and how their mind functions. Psychology is a multifaceted field which includes different sub-fields such as cognitive, developmental, personality, military, sports, health social psychology and many more. Psychology is a new discipline, where, before knowing others, the entire concept of self-knowledge is absolutely necessary for people who all are involved in this field. So, it’s primarily essential for me to know myself before I try to understand others. But, Do I know myself well? Who am I as a person? Why do I feel sad or happy? What motivates me to do better in life? What attributes do I have and how these attributes make me unique? Why do I think or perceive things in certain ways? If you asked me these questions years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to answer any of these simple questions. However today, I can. The only reason is Psychology.

I may not have read everything yet but I’m better than before. Where a successful person gives all the credit to the people around him/her. In my case, whatever I am today is all because of Psychology (hundreds of topics, different findings, applied various psychological theories by influential theorists) I never thought that a subject could change my life completely. I know you must be curious to know how it changed my life? After all, It’s merely a subject like every other subject. Okay, I’ll tell you a story and you will find everything.

Everyone has a story to tell but not every tale is a fairytale. This is a story about who I have become today, from a bashful girl who walked with a touch-me-not board to someone who is more confident, mentally strong, determined and stands for what is right. Knowing yourself is not a piece of cake. I have gone through one hell of a time of 13 years to find out the true meaning of my life and a clear picture of my own self. Through the whole journey, looking for myself- I fell, lost all hopes, cried when no one was around, totally depressed, had suicidal thoughts but I fought unsoundly and overcame all the negativity. Today, I’m well aware of the latest version of myself and it will continue to update with time. As we know, change is the mere thing which is permanent in this uncertain world. But this is not the end here, it took years to discover myself. So, to know everything, you have to go through my journey of changes.

Who am I as a person?

I’m not perfect human; I’m just an ordinary girl who learns from her mistakes and loves the person I’m is growing into. For whom, joy and happiness is the new perfection. Though in 2006, I was a weak, skinny girl from a reserved family. My elder brother used to go to a school, located in the city and I went to a school in the village. I always wanted to join my brother’s school. And, my family ignored all my pleadings. But luck was on my side. On a usual day in school, the principal made an announcement.

I listened to him carefully. It was about joining a boarding school. My instincts were highly active which helped to give my name without a second thought. I decided for myself for the first time. I told my family about my decision. Of course, everyone completely denied except my grandpa. His support was enough for me to live my first decision. In 2007, I cleared my written exam, physical test and interview for the respective school. And my entire life changed. At that time, I was a 9-year-old, proud girl. And for the first, my family’s history was going to change for the better.

Earlier, I didn’t know what I was doing but these small things were making me happy. Now when I look back, everything makes sense to me. Okay, Let me explain this to you in Psychological language, In the 20th century, founder of individual psychology- Alfred Adler developed a birth order theory. According to him, the birth order of a child influences his/her personality. He also explained how the family atmosphere produce thoughts and shape the behaviours in a child. Being a second child of the family, I always wanted to catch-up with my brother. Life was unfair to me, I felt unloved and left out. However, I always believed in living peacefully and I adapted the environment of my family. And one day, everything changed completely. We all are born with natural biological tendencies that help us to choose what is better for survival. These innate feelings (instincts) can not explain all the behaviours of a human being but it plays a pivotal role in my life. My decision was all based on my gut feeling and it really helped me.

On 02/02/2007, I joined the school named Motilal Nehru School of Sports, Rai. Rai got me lots and lots of memories of years spent in the school. In those 9 years, I laughed, I cried a lot, I made so many friends who are still in touch, also believed few friends who broke my trust and me on inside. After those broken moments of my life, I didn’t make friends, I mean not that easily. I was someone who could not say NO to anyone. I used to help everyone no matter what they asked me for and this is not how it works.

People misunderstood the concept of help and I was taken for granted. I helped people because I wanted them to accept me, to feel satisfied and to stay positive. Slowly, I stopped trusting people and learned to say NO. I do help people but also take precautions in advance. I was in a Hindi medium school in the village, but my new school was English medium. I had a lot of problems in adjusting and adapting to the new environment. Also, I failed in science in 4th standard. When my family got to know about my results. Like every typical family in India, they shouted, made comparisons, a lot of remarks were given and didn’t listen to me. I couldn’t say anything, while I was trying to adjust to this new environment, I lost my science book.

This point could backfire on me. So, I kept quiet with tears in my eyes. It’s not that my family didn’t love me but asking me to become a part of rat race was their fault. According to everyone around me, I was not an intelligent child because I could not get good marks. But is that right? I mean judging someone who doesn’t get good marks. However, I knew that I was not going to run this rat race. I really worked hard to get good marks. Neither to compete with others nor to impress anybody. I was my own competitor. Finally, I could achieve my goal in the next class. I got marks in the 90s. I was happy.

I had this feeling like science is not rocket science, if I work hard, it’s something I can achieve. From that day till 10th class. This up-down of my marks continued. I really didn’t care about my marks in any subject. Till the end, my parents understood that I would do everything that I like. But I didn’t know what was going to happen next. When I gave my final exam in 12th standard, I had an idea about my result. I could not tell anyone because family drama is injurious to my health. And why to start any sort of drama before time, as this was going to start after months.

When the 12th standard result was announced, I could not live up to my parent’s expectations. And my bad days began. Everyone had made an image of me in their heads that I’m someone who won’t disappoint anyone. That not my fault. I achieve merely those things which I really want to. I mean what do you expect from someone who read novels instead of textbooks during exams. See, I had no interest in any of the subject until I started studying Psychology. But everyone in my family and my relatives were really disappointed.

My relatives called me overconfident. My family said lots of stuff which they should not have said. I really wanted to jump from somewhere, cut myself or everything I could do to escape from this dark phase. It was one of the worst days of my life. But somewhere, I knew one thing clearly that the pain is not permanent. This too will end one day. I joined college, my life was back on track. However, it was not easy to get back to normal life. It took 6 months to end the torture I endured for months. One thing that helped me was sports. Whenever I get stressed, sports is merely the option to keep my head clear. In college, I started studying Psychology, I was totally fascinated and became curious to know more.

Though I still don’t like some topics. But overall, it was like, I found the right thing. From that point, I knew what I want to do in life. People changes with time, so do I. When people ask me, “Are you an extrovert or an introvert?” And I tell them, I’m an ambivert who is a blend of both the categories with unique qualities. With my close ones, I’m a great conversationalist and with other people, I tend to listen carefully. I love going out for parties or other events but for a limited time. Also getting attention is always depends on the situation. Meeting and inculcating with new people is something very interesting for me but most of the time I like observing people and think before I speak. When someone wants to share something, I listen and if they are silent souls then I talk non-stop. Ambiversion has not been explained in any of the theories given by various psychologists.

In fact, according to Myers-Briggs personality theory, there are merely two preferences- Introversion and Extroversion. Ambiversion doesn’t exist. Somehow, Carl Jung knew that most of the people belong to this category. Though he didn’t use the proper definition for Ambiversion. But ambiverts do exists.

I know psychology won’t resolve my matters but it helps me in controlling my emotions before they control me. Developed my rational thinking skills, enhance my memory and brings positivity. As I said earlier, psychology and I are always connected.
And as usual, my family continued the chain of the rat race. Now it was not about marks, government job became their priority. I ignored everything and started keeping things to myself. I listened to my family so that they wouldn’t feel bad. I didn’t want them to be sad after all they were my family. Over time, I started wanting more information and facts about psychology. As it was helping me to know who am I as a person and to understand people in a better way. It is easy to get knowledge from textbooks, but the knowledge we need to survive is arduous. Few traits can’t explain our personality.

It’s a combination of our unconscious thoughts, how family environment influences and how we behave with others. My life has been a series of lessons and one of the most important is – everything I do affects everyone around me. So, spreading smiles is something I do without any extra efforts. That’s creating a chain reaction of cheerfulness that makes people listen to me. When I chose psychology, I realized one thing that I had to stay open-minded because life is full of unpredictable moments and we never know which story he/she has lived.

Read Chapter 2 Here.