Read Online Choice Theory by M.D. William Glasser - Free Book Online Page A

to see him in the same way. To avoid controversy, many people tend to stay out of political and religious arguments and instead talk about the weather. Whatever weather is in our quality worlds, no one will fault that picture.
    Because my daughter is in my quality world, I cannot see her as she actually is on the stage. But I, along with almost everyone else attending the play that night, tend to see the set the same way. We may admire it, but unless we designed it, the set is not in any of our quality worlds, so there is no need to see it any differently from the way it is. Total objectivity is a myth. It could exist only if we all had exactly the same quality worlds.
    We see this discrepancy most clearly in jury trials. If the defendant is in the quality worlds of the jurors for a wide variety of reasons, they may pay little attention to the evidence and acquit him. If he is not the kind of person any of the jurors would put into their quality worlds, he is likely to be found guilty even on flimsy evidence. That is why defendants try to dress well for their trials and to be respectful to the judges. As much as we think we can, we cannot view a situation objectively unless it has nothing to do with what is in our quality worlds.
    But in operation, there has to be such a thing as a real world. If we were not able to see huge parts of it in much the same way, we would be living in the equivalent of the Tower of Babel and be unable to deal with each other effectively enough to get anything done. For example, most of us agree on what time it is or therecould be no concept of being on time. But time is not usually in our quality worlds; under ordinary circumstances, we get no great pleasure from knowing what time it is. If I am a dispatcher in a railroad yard, however, time is very much in my quality world because my not knowing the correct time can cause a severe accident. There is hardly anything that is not important to someone, but most of the time there is enough that is unimportant to almost all of us so that we can agree that what’s out there is reality.
    As we attempt to satisfy our needs, we are continually creating and re-creating our quality worlds. If I want a lot of power, I may put politics into my quality world. If survival is all I want, I may make Ebenezer Scrooge my role model. If freedom dominates the pictures in my quality world, I may buy a small sailboat and blissfully sail the sea alone. If I want a lot more sex, I may ignore my mate and look for a sexier partner who matches the one I picture in my quality world. If I spend a lot of money running for office and fail to get elected, I may eventually take politics out of my quality world. I tend to keep the pictures in as long as they have any chance of working for me.
    But I still may keep these pictures too long because, frustrating as they may be, it is painful to take them out. It is giving up on something that was very satisfying to one or more of my needs in the past. So most of us keep pictures in our quality worlds long after we are no longer able to satisfy them to the extent we want. You may keep an ideal picture of your wife in your quality world for quite a while after you are no longer able to satisfy that picture in the real world. She has been there a long time, and you keep hoping she’ll change. Also, if you take her out, you will be tempted to leave her, which could result in financial problems and unhappy children. You may be unhappy with your wife, but you’d be even unhappier if you took her out. No matter how good a reason you have to keep someone in your quality world, if you can’t be with him or her the way you want to, you suffer. Romeo and Juliet might have been better off separating for a while until they got older, but their quality worlds did not give them that choice.
    As I explained in the first two chapters, even feeling good is complicated because there are two different kinds of pleasure pictures. One pleasure I called