“Psyche - 1: soul, spirit; 2: mind, mental processes, and activities.
Psychology - 1: the science of mind and behavior; 2: the mental or behavioral characteristics of an individual or group; 3: the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity.
Psychologist - 1: a specialist in psychology.
Imagination - 1: the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality; 2: a creation of the mind, an idealized or poetic creation; 3: popular or traditional belief or conception.
Creative - 1: having the power or quality of creating.
Thought - 1: the action or process of thinking; 2: an individual act or product of thinking; 3: the intellectual product or the organized views and principles of a period, place, group, or individual.
Emotion - 1: the affective aspect of consciousness; 2: a state of feeling.
Religion - 1: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.
Environment - 1: the complex of climatic, edaphic, and biotic factors that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival; 2: the aggregate of social and cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or community.
Development - 1: the act, process, or result of developing; 2: the state of being developed.”
(The definitions of all of the above words are only there in part and came from Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, ©1969.)
How do we think? Most people will say that it has something to do with electrical impulses in the brain. That’s probably right; but let’s not talk about the scientific “How,” Let’s talk about the “Why” and the more illogical “How.” Have you ever asked yourself the question why do we think a certain way? What affects our thoughts and how do we think of the ideas we do? There are many things that affect our thought processes, and in the future we may think a lot differently than we do now.
Some people may not believe the psyche and emotions we feel are of any importance at all. These people hardly ever think about “why” a person does something; the incentive behind their actions. They may not look beyond the fact that this event, say robbing a store, occurred because so-and-so actually did rob the store; in other words, negative motivation. They don’t even consider that so-and-so may have robbed the store because they were starving or some other such more positive reason. Something that may not be obvious to the common observer is a person’s incentive. What are the reasons? Who’s to say, for sure. But the rest of us can draw logical conclusions as to the “why” behind a person’s incentive by observing and testing their psyche and emotions. That is why psychology and psychological factors are much more important than the general populous give them credit to be.
Psychology, in the year 2050, will probably have changed drastically from what it currently is. If we only take a minute to reflect how things were handled 50 years ago, we can see major changes between then and now. It used to be thought that force was the best way to get something done. Now most of us believe reasoning is the best solution. People also ignored most mental problems. If a family member went crazy, they did not receive help, for people thought it was weak to have such a problem. Presently, mental illness is handled like any other disease, with seriousness and medications. A psychologist’s job in the future may be quite different from what it is now. Currently psychologists talk to patients and try to understand why they are doing what they’re doing, and try to help them figure out how to treat the problem. In the future, psychologists may have quick and simple ways of finding these things out. Maybe there’ll be machines or tools that can scan a person’s brain and determine in seconds, instead of days or weeks, what is wrong with them. Maybe there might also be instant cures, lasers or something else that penetrate to the mind and can change a person’s thought processes so that the disease is eliminated.
In the future maybe even what we think about or imagine will have been changed drastically. Our imagination gives us the power to be creative, to conceive things people haven’t thought of yet. In fifty years we may be thinking totally differently from what we currently do. Ideas that we are only now starting to think of will probably have already been accomplished. New creative ideas will be springing forth, fueled by technology just discovered. Our creativity will be growing as our horizons proceed before us. Our lives will become more complex with thoughts and imaginations, yet more simple as ideas give way to technological advancements.
As we grow up, there are many things that affect our way of thinking. Two of these could be religion and environment. First of all, religion may affect us as we grow. Religion, as referred to on the first page, is a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices. When we are young the importance of our beliefs is impressed upon us. For some families this is more important than others. Some families believe that religion and God (or whatever it is they believe in,) should come before all else. Others feel it is wholly unimportant. When people are adults, their lives and livings may reflect how they were raised with these ideas. Fifty years from now, the beliefs that are currently held may be totally irrelevant. Everything we think of as facts or beliefs now, may be proved to be completely wrong. New thoughts about religion may be instigated, and old ones thought as wrong. This would be like how we now think the persecution of races of people is wrong. In 2050, we may know for a fact what happens after death, so we may know what to think of any type of supernatural being that is there once we pass away. It may be known whether there actually is a greater power above us.
Probably the most important thing that affects the way we think, grow, and develop is our environment. When we are adults we use the experiences from our youth to draw conclusions about situations. From our past we develop ideas of the world that influence our mental processes. Our perception of the world, whether it’s for the better or worse, is determined by how we grew up and what we were raised to believe. In the past, life was affected first and foremost by the church. In the present, a lot of the times, it’s affected by school and the home situation. In the future it could be affected by what culture you live in and where. Maybe, in 2050, people won’t even still be living on Earth; maybe they’ll be on Mars, or ships and space stations. Maybe there will be flying cars and floating buildings. Currently, a lot of people’s lives are molded around fitness as well. Perhaps in fifty years, medicine and fitness education will be in extreme contrast to what it is now. Medicine, although we may not realize it, is also a key factor in our environment. How long we live is directly determined by how well we take care of ourselves; and medicine determines what we are to do, in that regard. Our environment, as we mature, is probably the variable that is the most influential in our thought processes.
No one can predict the future with 100% accuracy. The future is something that is tangible, but never quite there. We may think we know how things are going to be fifty years from now, but we will never really know for sure. Yesterday affected today, today affects tomorrow, and the tomorrows of every day will always affect our future.
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