Ayesha Tariq Ali

The Psychological Aspects of Society Written By:- Ayesha Tariq Ali If the world was a society, its pillars would rest upon some similar pavements. The beauty of culture, all unique yet similar, rebounds from the street lights of the cities all the way to the oiled lanterns in the villages. It‟s an interlinked society, our earth. And into this society, every day breathes a new occupant. The curious eyes of a body filled with potential. A vessel capable to propel by leaps and bounds, yet one which is detained by its own air - its society. Is society really the culprit? Or has humanity turned society into a cult? “A society is a well-organized group of people sharing all amenities." If society is supposed to be united in presenting creature comforts, why does it also keep us united in confinement to some boundaries? Who defines what is shared in society? Do its pillars stand embellished by our psyches? As time has changed, so have various aspects of society. Today‟s society is stuffed with occupation. The lack of leisure builds up impatience which has resulted in the removability of values we just don‟t have time for anymore. We are too busy to regard others. Instead, the center and periphery of our daily interactions is ourselves. This self-centered approach to society has demolished the true meaning of society and has given it a negative impact. If we are bound to unite and succeed together, it cannot come without understanding. How can we begin to understand others if our society is malnourished due to egotism? Each person in this world thinks, feels, or desires to be more superior to his fellow beings. Inflated superiority complexes drive out violence and the self-destruction of both one-self and the society. How can a person share society if he is too absorbed in his conceitedness? And when egos drive out the path to racism, the obstacles to doom society as a whole just grow stronger. The breakage of unity hence occurs due to many of the above factors, all only due to perspective of how a society begins to think. Once a chain, an inter-linked society shreds up into groupings, ones which after years, are hard to re-unite. The psychological aspects of society and its obstacles are probably similar to some extent. Man is a social animal, he cannot survive without society. Yet he is manipulative – he uses his social cards for his own needs. One‟s culture, the environment, and most of all his interactions are all only used to meet his own interests. In the past, society was united. People not only came to funerals, but celebrated life together. If someone was absent from his daily activities, this would raise alarms and concern instead of ignorance. The only divergence was seen in wars, when people were grouped against each other. Racism, egotism, and other aspects existed – but they did not dominate society like today, where these aspects are psychologically inherited. In the modern age, society has become a competition. Families compete with one another, the winner usually having more „success‟ with money, educated kids, or squandering lifestyles. Businesses work hard to burn each other down, while countries wage war at each other to see whom the last one standing would be. Nonetheless a question arises, all cried out by society itself. For whom is the show for? Why are we using up society knowing its doom would cause our own befalling? The reason possibly lies in the materialistic aspects we have introduced into our societies. This is not a syndrome rooted in a specific area of the world, but rather one which has found a dwelling into humanity. Our social relations are now limited to these materialistic values. We only shake the hands of those who will feed this syndrome. Our restless, insatiable competitive spirits have not caused any pronounced attaining but rather, it is the cause for our self-destruction. What happened to collaboration? Where is the display that together everyone achieves more? The psychology of today‟s society nodes from the lack of unity. Instead of uniting towards the betterment for humanity, we divide and compete our ways through smaller diverging goals. The psychological concept of winners and losers is perhaps the greatest impediment to the success of society. How can society „win‟ if suffering still straddles its core? It is in our minds that we only win when another party loses. We do not see any truth ringing in the occurrence of bliss for all or not bliss at all. Happiness to us is no longer the butterfly we have to wait for to sit on our shoulders, it is rather now in the trapping of a creature so similar to us yet one which is made fragile for the sake of dominance. And what is happiness if it is not in sharing? Society has forgotten that each of its particles have equal importance. Every person in the world has come into it with a purpose. Our society members are a part of us, as we are parts of them. Society is a train leaping to success if only its counterparts aka people start seeing that they are heading towards the same goal as a team. If this occurred, we would see a true society standing on the pavestones of kindness and compassion. Into this world, we all are cocoons. Its takes not an entire village but the entire globe to raise us to the point that we crack our coatings. We are all then butterflies creating a united chaos, only until we diverge away. No one is actually a foreigner to our world – we are all foreigners into it. Yet our psyches cause alienism to be labeled onto any „outlanders‟. We stand undivided in these circumstances and including refugee crisis and alarming problems, we ourselves fall. We are all raised by extreme compassion and kindness, yet we take a few seconds to behave oppositely due to the wrong concepts embedded into our minds. In the modern world, society is barely breathing due to all the hate. Unique psyches opposing this now-natural tendency all prove that love wins. Love is the remedy to all of our worldly problems. Kindness and compassion are all cures to our restlessness and failure. We need to stop “succeeding” at the expense of others. Instead, we need to establish collective goals. Our honor and integrity do not depend on how much we make others suffer but on how much we gift ourselves by helping others. Today‟s society suffers from blows to its self-esteem, clearly visible in its current aspects. We have sold our happiness by diminishing others‟ happiness. We have depressed ourselves with over-piling problems, and we have trapped this mixture into our own bodies. We need to rise from these ashes or we will continue to suffer. Our society today needs to erase the limiting boundaries it has set. Our aged adults need to stop seeing limitations and rather wait for their expectations to be broken. What is the need for pressuring a child to walk on a specific path? Growth is not always guided and such pressure leads to turmoil. Unfortunately, the pressure is on youth to take up fixed future plans and decisions. “Be a doctor”, an “engineer”, no “you can‟t be a director” – are all common slogans we hear our adults say. No one asks us to be a good human being. If I as youth am the future, why can’t I be the person to decide it? My thoughts are stars that I can fathom into constellations. They are not something I cannot catch and are not dreams which cannot be achieved. Youth demands to be felt. It is the compromise for society and its future. It is the psychological feature which can turn leafs for society. Today, youth power is undeniable. Youth has realized that they are the future. They have become serious in not wasting time and potential. Yet there are two sides of the youth-coin also – while some youth have astoundingly already succeeded there is youth who waste away the golden peak of their lifetimes. “To be or not to be – that is the question” I am today‟s youth – the future, the change-makers, the ones with pressure piling up on their backs. It is our duty to somehow correct the mistakes of the past to come to better conditions in the future. I am today‟s most powerful aspect for society – my education is the one weapon which can literally change the world. “The future promise of any nation can be directly measured by the present prospects of its youth.” If the future promise of the global society was to be measured by the prospects of today‟s youth, there is a new globe in the upcoming horizons. Youth is not waiting for tomorrow but starting to change today. A large number of youth has shown youth‟s potential by activism. Youth is firm about their rights. Most youth today is fully aware of their role in a society. Youth has already impacted many global leaders for their calls on climate action and other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Another unignorable encroachment led by youth is the recent March For Our Lives movement which will probably break history‟s chain and overturn the devastating gun laws which cause gun-related violence in the USA. “Good habits formed at youth make all the difference” The promising aspects of youth forming tomorrow‟s succeeding society lie in good habits. It takes a lot of discipline and acknowledgement to start change. The awareness and acceptance of our present situation is the first step to us changing it and attaining success. Youth breaks boundaries and borders. It is not a cocoon but a butterfly. It is proof that success comes only out of our comfort zones. Today brilliant youth are not only doctors, they are presently smaller leaders who actually get their voices heard. “80% of success is psychology – action is key to everything” Youth has realized that the aspects of any society lie within the psyches of its individuals. We are all what we do – excellence is therefore not an act but a habit. Successful people are simply those with successful habits. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us” It was a climax with the universe and with myself when in late 2017, I decided to pursue my bachelors in Applied Psychology. Being a science student who didn‟t end up to the straight path leading to medical school, I decided why not take the road untaken and pursue a career supporting mental health? In the spur of the moment, it seemed the only purpose I could and wanted to serve. The stigma towards mental health and the slowly building movements and awareness towards the equivalence of mental health actually being superior to physical health inspired me to take up this road. There is a certain magical aspect to more challenges. It is something beautifully unique realizing you are not only onto causing change, but doing so with a new recipe. Psychology is one of the most important and powerful tools in all paths of life. The Greek word Psyche means two things, different yet alike butterfly and soul. A butterfly begins as a caterpillar, something thought to be useless and ugly. Yet one day it builds its cocoon and after some time, it opens up to become a butterfly which is regarded as the most beautiful creature in the world. Our souls are nothing different. We struggle in darkness and trials and at the end, these misfortunes serve as experiences which purify our sufferings. They strengthen us to the point that if we see it in a way, souls are exactly like butterflies and perhaps even more beautiful. Society is an amalgam of our psyches. We need to learn to form positive mindsets towards accomplishing life as we do. Our psychology is like a key to all of life‟s locks. And a positive psychology can unlock just about anything and everything. As today‟s youth training to become a clinical psychologist as the ultimate in terms of career, I am forever working on bringing change into myself and others. I believe in psychology and dream that one day, this secret ingredient to our daily life recipe will improve our lives and conquer our troubles. I ignore all negative forces in our environment discouraging me that life‟s recipe isn‟t this easy, and I look forward to that day when this misconception will be debunked by youth myself. I am mentally ready to once and for all proclaim that the aspects of any society are just psychological. Society is not a cult, it is a beautiful blessing. Our global society needs a new outlook. And today‟s youth is polishing its roots. “I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.”