Psychology for sale

A person walks into a shop, and asks for the very best of what psychology can offer. The shopkeeper smiles and asks:
- Sure, but which psychology do you want?
- Are there many psychologies? the buyer asked
- Oh, there are so many distinct psychologies ... look

Pointing at tens of bottles on shelves:
First, there is this old psychology of sanity, doesn't get many buyers nowadays

Then there is the popular psychology of success, made in USA, with tempting promises, cool tactics, and impressive testimonials.

On the other shelf, we have the psychology of happiness, it's the highest ranked by clients, an exotic mixture of old eastern mindfulness and post-modern humanism

There are many others; the psychology of love, with its most beautiful language; the psychology of freedom, claiming it can help you get rid from all cravings to other psychologies; the psychology of the collective, arguing against all individual psychologies, and claiming that we can all only heal together;

There are also even less known and bought psychologies of principles, of meaning, of transcendence, of ...

- Tell me about the transparent one, up there
- This one, my friend, is the psychology of reality, it just helps you be real, it doesn't promise you anything else!! No success, happiness, love or meaning, just being real. Only a handful of my clients can live with the side effects of such a peculiarity.

Ok - said the buyer, nervously - how about I buy a portion of every psychology and mix them together? Get the best of every one of them?

- I'm sorry dear, they don't mix really well, you see, most of my clients buy one type of psychology at a time, they keep consuming it till it runs out, but they still feel a deep void inside, so they come and buy another type, then another ... those who tried mixing them, ended up coming back here, begging for the psychology of sanity!

- What should I do? murmured the poor buyer, looking increasingly desperate 

The shopkeeper opened a drawer, got out a small box, and handed it to the buyer, 
- Take this one and try it, it's a gift, see how it works and come back if you want more

The person took the box and never came back ... 
Inside the box, was an empty bottle.

#success #happiness #love #freedom #meaning #reality
First published on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/psychology-sale-hany-shoukry