Read Online Choice Theory by M.D. William Glasser - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: M.D. William Glasser
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happiness, which means that if you are unhappy, you keep trying to satisfy a picture of you and someone else being close. At a minimum, happy people have some people, usually loved ones, some family members, and at least one friend in their quality worlds.
But a lot of people have not found anyone they can trust and enjoy being with. They may have been rejected or abused, and they begin to give up on happiness, on feeling good in a relationship. In many instances, they discover that there are ways to find pleasure without relationships. To feel good, they begin to replace people pictures with nonpeople pleasure pictures—pictures of violence, drugs, and unloving sex—in their quality worlds. As they do so, they separate themselves further from people and happiness, compounding the urgency of their problem. The more lonely they get, the less they are able to accept that they have rejected people and the more they believe that people have rejected them. Many of them blame the government or people who are different from them.
If they are men, they often hate women and enjoy degrading them. They hate them because they need them sexually, and they like to see themselves as macho men who don’t need anyone.
Hustler
magazine depends on the quality world fantasies of these men. And there must be a lot of them because that magazine has made millions for its creator.
A few years ago, my wife, Carleen, and I worked for a year in an inner-city middle school where most of the students did not have teachers, each other, or schoolwork in their quality worlds. The students felt no happiness in that school, but they did feel some pleasure talking about, and sometimes satisfying, the usual pleasure pictures of unhappy young people: drugs, violent clowning around, and nonloving sex. They were resigned to the fact that they would never be happy in school. It was apparent to us that because they had experienced so little pleasure in school, and what they had had been years ago in the primarygrades, they couldn’t even conceive that happiness in school was possible.
The more the teachers and the principal tried to force them, with threats and punishment, to do schoolwork, the more they resisted and the more they focused on what was in their quality worlds. I discuss all the things we did in that school to turn it around in chapter 10, on education. But from this much, you can see what we had to do if our goal was to convince the students to do schoolwork. We had to persuade them to put us, and through us, schoolwork, into their quality worlds. We had to treat them well no matter how they treated us. Using choice theory, we were able to build relationships with them, and through these relationships, they began to picture themselves satisfying their needs in school with people. Happiness slowly began to replace pleasure as they began to put the staff and each other into their quality worlds.
As long as the people we want to help have only antisocial pleasure pictures in their quality worlds, all we can do that has any chance of succeeding is to build relationships with them and get into their quality worlds. Punishment, which is used mainly with students, especially with those who come from poor homes and don’t like school, does just the opposite. The more we do what most people believe is right—punish—the further we get from what we want. It is a wonder that our schools are doing as well as they are, considering how much we punish and how many students do not have teachers and schoolwork in their quality worlds.
We all need happy, supportive people in our quality worlds; nothing less will do. It is the job of parents, teachers, and employers to be such people. Too many teachers and bosses do not realize how much they are needed just to be warm, friendly, and supportive to those they teach and manage. It doesn’t take much; a few minutes of attention a day works wonders. But many who teach and manage don’t understand that given
But a lot of people have not found anyone they can trust and enjoy being with. They may have been rejected or abused, and they begin to give up on happiness, on feeling good in a relationship. In many instances, they discover that there are ways to find pleasure without relationships. To feel good, they begin to replace people pictures with nonpeople pleasure pictures—pictures of violence, drugs, and unloving sex—in their quality worlds. As they do so, they separate themselves further from people and happiness, compounding the urgency of their problem. The more lonely they get, the less they are able to accept that they have rejected people and the more they believe that people have rejected them. Many of them blame the government or people who are different from them.
If they are men, they often hate women and enjoy degrading them. They hate them because they need them sexually, and they like to see themselves as macho men who don’t need anyone.
Hustler
magazine depends on the quality world fantasies of these men. And there must be a lot of them because that magazine has made millions for its creator.
A few years ago, my wife, Carleen, and I worked for a year in an inner-city middle school where most of the students did not have teachers, each other, or schoolwork in their quality worlds. The students felt no happiness in that school, but they did feel some pleasure talking about, and sometimes satisfying, the usual pleasure pictures of unhappy young people: drugs, violent clowning around, and nonloving sex. They were resigned to the fact that they would never be happy in school. It was apparent to us that because they had experienced so little pleasure in school, and what they had had been years ago in the primarygrades, they couldn’t even conceive that happiness in school was possible.
The more the teachers and the principal tried to force them, with threats and punishment, to do schoolwork, the more they resisted and the more they focused on what was in their quality worlds. I discuss all the things we did in that school to turn it around in chapter 10, on education. But from this much, you can see what we had to do if our goal was to convince the students to do schoolwork. We had to persuade them to put us, and through us, schoolwork, into their quality worlds. We had to treat them well no matter how they treated us. Using choice theory, we were able to build relationships with them, and through these relationships, they began to picture themselves satisfying their needs in school with people. Happiness slowly began to replace pleasure as they began to put the staff and each other into their quality worlds.
As long as the people we want to help have only antisocial pleasure pictures in their quality worlds, all we can do that has any chance of succeeding is to build relationships with them and get into their quality worlds. Punishment, which is used mainly with students, especially with those who come from poor homes and don’t like school, does just the opposite. The more we do what most people believe is right—punish—the further we get from what we want. It is a wonder that our schools are doing as well as they are, considering how much we punish and how many students do not have teachers and schoolwork in their quality worlds.
We all need happy, supportive people in our quality worlds; nothing less will do. It is the job of parents, teachers, and employers to be such people. Too many teachers and bosses do not realize how much they are needed just to be warm, friendly, and supportive to those they teach and manage. It doesn’t take much; a few minutes of attention a day works wonders. But many who teach and manage don’t understand that given
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