Page 7 - Workbook3E

“Quality of Life” versus “Quantity of Things”
The Power of Your World View
Other factors also help to determine the rules or values you embrace and those you don’t. One of the most important of these factors is your world view: what you believe to be true about the world around you—your “model” of how life is. From the time you’re born, people, circumstances and your environment persuade you to see the world in a particular way.
It’s difficult to even perceive of people or things being any different than you know them to be. The strength of this model may result in it never occurring to you that things could be any other way. This is the power of your world view.
You may be surprised to learn the planet is filled with many world views—about large and small issues, big and little things. You may be affected by them without even knowing it. Often what others believe about the world around you has far-reaching effects on your behavior and on the rules or values controlling how you buy and care for your belongings and property.
A World View Shift
A change in your personal world view can be an incredibly important event. It happens when you consciously decide
to look at your environment in a new way. Perhaps by chance you learn something new and important, or maybe a situation or circumstance in your life makes a big impression.
You may start to see things in a new light, as if through someone else’s eyes. Suddenly, you no longer accept what you previously believed to be true and natural about the way things are, and your model changes. You undergo a shift in your personal world view.
“Trust me, there haven’t been bears in these woods for years...”
The key is your point of view...
Students at Jefferson High School considered Jacob to be very cold and conceited. He often completely ignored them and refused to respond when asked a question. It was as if he felt he was too good for their nonsense. He held his head high in what seemed a “snobbish” manner and passed by as if they weren’t even there. The other teenagers often talked about him and what nerve he had to think he was too good for them.
Then one day Jacob came to school for the first time wearing hearing aids. Suddenly, his classmates realized what the problem had been. Jacob wasn’t conceited at all; he simply couldn’t hear their comments or questions and
so he hadn’t responded. This realization created a rapid shift in the other Jefferson student’s world view of Jacob. They realized how wrong their previous beliefs had been and now gave him the benefit of the doubt. Once they took the time to get to know him better, it opened up a whole new world for Jacob and his new-found friends.
“A capacity to change
is indispensable. Equally important is the capacity to hold fast to that which is good.”
~ John Foster Dulles
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