12 Psychological Facts That Will Empower a Better Life
#7 You’re evolved to make errors when you think
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There are people who only see half of what's in front of them. If you instructed them to draw a clock, they would only draw numbers on one side of the face. This condition is called hemispatial neglect, and those affected have no possibility of perceiving the things located on their damaged side of the visual space.
Though psychology is full of such weird and cool examples, it was not the fun-facts that made me study it in the first place; it was the way it improved my life.
Two years before starting my psychology degree, I studied something completely different: Geography. It was not something I chose because of passion, but rather, it was the result of a mistake. However, since I didn’t really know what I wanted back then, I accepted the fact and settled in.
But as the months passed by, something started to change. Looking back, it was not the result of any single force, but not knowing what to do with my life definitely helped it come along. I was getting depressed. And, as I didn’t have the means to withstand it, it slowly grew worse until I hit my rock bottom: a breakup.
This shattered my world and left me broken for days. And in my desperation, I started to search for ways to alleviate the pain. But searching online for “how to deal with a breakup” and even “how to get back with your ex,” didn’t serve me well. The internet is full of empty, and even harmful advice.
I continued to search for answers though, literally, because the pain was still intense. I don’t know whether it was a stroke of luck or a slow elimination of previous information, but I eventually stumbled on an article written by a psychologist. It was different.
It wasn’t shallow. Nor was it trying to maintain a positive attitude. It was sober, laying out the challenges as well as possible solutions. Intrigued, I finished it with full attention and went on to a suggested article on the same page.
