Our ‘Quality World Pictures’ was coined by Psychiatrist William Glasser to represent people, places, things and beliefs that we unknowingly isolate from our all-we-know-world. These things are selected and separated because they add value to our life in some measure. We isolated them as desiring to make them a part of our everyday life. Although they are pictures in our head, we devote our time and attention into developing them into reality.
In non-Reality-Therapy-Choice-Theory-language, I suppose dreams could be seen as the same thing as quality world pictures. We can have both Quality World pictures as well as dreams, yet not be aware of either. We may think it is ‘common sense’ to want this or that or to not want this or that.
Before we proceed further, I need you to know that my definition of ‘common sense’ is those things we bought into pre-conscious and pre-verbal. It is those things we were born into and automatically accepted without question. Those commonalities became our worldview of life and by default became our ‘everybody’s-like-that’ position. We pre-judged that ‘them and their’ were like ‘me and mine’; not necessarily in an ugly prejudicial way but in a limited understanding of differences in individuals, families, tribes, cultures and nations.
And that is where conflict comes in. The real world – people, places, things and beliefs that really exists - tries to educate us. Wake us up. Broaden our perspectives.
Dr. Glasser said, "We control the world for need."
What? I like to put it in a think-about-pattern -- "We control _______ for ______."
EXAMPLES:
We control co-workers for cooperation.
We control the horn for faster traffic flow.
We control our anger for getting our way.
We control being lovey-dovey for getting our way.
(Note the last two control tactics are different approaches with the same end result in mind. Each can be legitimate or a false front, depending on the emotion behind the drive.)
We (attempt) to control ... others or situations or the weather, or traffic or the government or what-have-you... in an attempt to get a need met whether it is our belonging need or our power need or our fun need or…
You get the picture.
But here is the conundrum (riddle). Until we learn Choice Theory, we may be ineffectively attempting to get a need met –even one we don't yet know we have - using pictures we don't know we are trying to develop. Our needs, as well as our ways of securing them, are illusive. We search for pleasure or success following the 'common sense lie'.
How we gather these Quality World pictures is multi-dimensional and lasts a lifetime. Perhaps from old TV shows like Ozzie and Harriett we extrapolate a picture of a happy, healthy marriage.
If I think money will make me happy, then money is a major picture in my quality world even though it may look like a big house or a fancy car or beautiful clothes that I inadvertently adopted as wanting and associated those “things” with money.
If I think love will make me happy then I look for an unspecific person – probably one with money - especially if the people I currently associate with do not make me "feel" loved.
And that is another 'common sense' lie. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Or ‘feel’ unloved or anything else. Feelings come from thoughts.
When we think unloving thoughts, we feel sad, depressed, angry, etc. Conversely, when we think loving thoughts, even if they are neutral – “maybe I misunderstood” – then our feelings do not hijack us as easily.
We may be in a family where we are loved very much but if their love is not shown to us in agreement with our illusive Quality World picture of what love looks like, then to us they do not love us.
And so the search goes on in another person, another job, a newer house, prettier clothes, whatever is just beyond our grasp but looks like it is the all-encompassing thing.
Newborns have the five basic needs as well as adults do. A baby knows when something is askew - hungry tummy, dirty diaper, cold or lonely - and he has no idea how to have this 'feeling' satisfied. So he cries. He makes noise. Mom shows up and offers comfort and baby is satisfied. Over time, the baby unknowingly places mom in his QW as the comforter, the food vendor, the problem solver, or as the what-ever-I-need fixer.
Maybe those pre-verbal picture labels contributes to mother's frustrations when the kid is fifteen and continually hollers "MOM!" Rather than lovingly responding, she may yell, “Get it yourself!”
This is how our Quality World pictures are collected, grow and distort.
And here is a rub with our selection of Quality World pictures. We isolate our Quality World pictures as having value to us that will add meaning, whether it is something we embrace or something we wish to fight against.
Oh, dear, such a tangled web. No wonder it is difficult to know our selves.
As an Instructor with the William Glasser Institute, I teach a not-so-common-sense worldview approach to effective living that brings peace and success in every area of life. Interested? Give me a shout out - monadunkin@gmail.com
