It was real love, it must have been, otherwise what else could it be? However, I struggled with what I knew this to be versus what my heart was saying it is. How could it be that my heart felt a different message from that which my head stated. Anyway…. long story short, I realised that this heart was not that of love. Nevertheless, this marked the beginning of what I would call a Youth Life Crisis (YLC). (By the way…… just a side note. Is Love behavioural, affective, physical or cognitive? Could it be that it’s all in one…behaviour in the acts, affective in the emotion, physical in the change of chemicals and cognitive in the thoughts that we have towards another person? Hmmmmmm……Food for thought.)
Deep in the heart of university and 2 years in, I went for lecture after lecture of accounting, numbers, balance sheets, macroeconomics, microeconomics. I enjoyed the numbers and I was good at them! I had dreams of wealth and success; money in the bank, large name across my door and a huge salary. However, after 2 years of this, I arrived at YLC (Youth life crisis) and decided to steer the ship in a new direction. This is when I decided to change my major to Psychology.
What? Psychology? What is that? How do you change from Finance to Psychology? These comments were truly legitimate and I frequently wondered whether I had made the right
choice to change courses. However, every Psychology class I attended brought to life a new love; a new heart. Psychology allowed me to live introspectively and understand myself better and those around me. It allowed me to appreciate childhood experiences and the role they play in who we are. It showed me the role of biological factors like hormones and the brain and the role they play in our behaviour, our social groups, our thoughts and how they all come together to make this intricate human being.
So, I am often asked why I chose psychology and my simple answer is, I enjoyed it. Did I envision what I wanted to do in the future with it? No! Foooooooolish! Right? However, at
that point all I desired was to study something I loved, something my heart was drawn to and so Psychology it became. Fast forward many years later…present day me…I have been
teaching A level Psychology for 14 years now. I guess God somehow connected the dots…Or should I say…He connected the hearts!