So, I gave this whole ‘psychology lens’ thing a go today. Just tried to consciously look at stuff happening around me and think about the ‘why’ behind it, you know? Not in some fancy academic way, just basic human motivation stuff.
I started this morning, actually. Was grabbing coffee and the line was moving super slow. Instead of just getting annoyed, I tried to figure out what was going on in people’s heads. Observe and analyze, right? Watched this one woman fidgeting constantly, checking her phone every ten seconds. Obvious conclusion: she’s late, stressed. Then there was this older guy, calm as anything, just looking out the window, didn’t seem bothered at all. Maybe retired? No pressures?
It felt a bit like playing pretend expert for a while. You build these little stories in your head:
- The student cramming at a table looked overwhelmed – big exam, probably.
- The couple whispering looked like they were having a secret, maybe exciting conversation.
- The barista seemed tired – maybe a long shift or trouble at home.
Tried doing this for maybe an hour. Just watching people come and go, making up these little psychological profiles. Sounds simple, maybe even a bit silly.
But then it hit me…
This whole exercise reminded me vividly of something that happened years ago, back when I worked at that small tech firm. There was this colleague, Mark. Super quiet guy, kept to himself. For weeks, he seemed really off. Came in late, looked exhausted, barely spoke. I started doing my ‘psychology lens’ thing back then too, even without calling it that. I built this whole narrative: he hated the job, was looking for something else, probably felt undervalued.
I even mentioned my ‘theory’ to my manager, suggesting maybe we should give him a different project or something to boost his morale. I thought I was being insightful, you know? Empathetic.
Turns out, I was completely wrong. Dead wrong. A week later, we found out Mark’s wife had been seriously ill, in and out of the hospital. He wasn’t disengaged with work; he was exhausted from worry and spending nights at the hospital. He wasn’t job hunting; he was barely holding it together.
Man, did I feel like an idiot. More than that, I felt ashamed. I’d been sitting there, analyzing him like some lab rat, completely missing the real human struggle right in front of me. My clever ‘psychological insights’ were just assumptions, projections based on my own limited view.
So, yeah. Trying to use a ‘psychology lens’ today was an interesting exercise. But that memory popped up and sort of put a damper on it. It’s a stark reminder, really. It’s easy to observe people and think you understand. It’s much harder to actually know what’s going on beneath the surface. Life’s way more complicated than the neat little stories we make up in our heads. That whole thing with Mark? It taught me to be a lot more careful, maybe a bit less quick to judge or ‘analyze’. Sometimes, you just don’t know.
