Reality Check: Expectations and the Pictures We Carry

Whenever two or more people get together and talk, we have an opportunity to share joy, to create understanding, and to deepen relationships. Getting together can be such fun!
Getting together also creates an opportunity for conflict, and there’s plenty of that, also. Some conflicts are simple disagreements over trivial matters. Others reflect profoundly different viewpoints about how things ought to be.
Even if we can’t remove the conflicts from our lives; it could be helpful if we can develop more understanding of them. To that end, I’ll suggest using a particular Choice Theory concept, the “Quality World,” as a tool to guide us.
The idea of the Quality World goes like this: Essentially, we have needs. As we grow, learn, and collect experiences, we find that some things in the world satisfy our needs, and other things don’t. No surprise there.
Dr. Glasser suggests that when we find something that satisfies our needs, we tuck that information away in our minds in a kind of mental picture album. According to Dr. Wubbolding in “Reality Therapy for the 21st Century,” the term Quality World is used, “Because [the pictures] are appealing, they are said to have high quality.”
It’s important to recognize that we’re not just talking about physical objects here. In fact, “things” might play a relatively minor role in your Quality World. Your sources of satisfaction could come from relationships that are important to you, the achievement and recognition that matters to you, the values and beliefs that you hold dear, and so on.
As an example of different Quality World pictures, consider what different people consider to be fun. For some, the picture of a satisfying fun evening looks like a party with a big group of people, meeting celebrities, city lights, drink, food, indulgence.
For another, that evening would be closer to a horror show than fun. They visualize a solitary beach walk, conversation with a close friend, books, music, and the peace of sitting in front of a fire with the cat. Different people want different things.
That’s all fine and dandy. However, sometimes those differing Quality World pictures place us at odds with each other. For example, think of how different people view the importance of being on time.
Some people are early for every appointment. Even when it doesn’t matter, they arrange their lives to ensure that they arrive early. Then there are the other folks; those who make a habit of showing up in barely the nick of time. Or they are slightly late. Or very late, but only if they believe they have a good excuse.
Let’s try looking at these differences as different pictures in our “Quality Worlds.” Different people have different pictures of what we find satisfying.
For example, one person’s Quality World includes “pictures” of the satisfaction that comes with feeling in control and on top of things. To satisfy that, they arrive early.
Another’s Quality World includes pictures of freedom; they reject the constraint of a schedule. To satisfy that, they arrive late.
Using the Quality World perspective to look at conflict isn’t going to make the conflict magically disappear. However, understanding that different people hold different pictures of what is satisfying could help move us toward better understanding of each other. And that’s at least a start toward working out ways to better get along.
Have you had an experience with conflict that could be associated with different Quality World pictures?