Ought to vs. Have to

Last week after a long 4 hour workday I was told by my wife and 9 year old daughter that I had to attend parent teacher conference for her that evening. Cindy was doing her own conferences at a different school, so it was left to me to be the responsible one. I didn't want to go. I especially didn't want to go because I was told I had to attend. If Jessica, our daughter, was a problem student, or was an idiot, I could understand why conversing with her teacher would be worthwhile. She's neither; thus, my stubborn stance. As usually happens, though, I gave in to appease the ladies in my life. It turned out to be 15 minutes of my life I will never get back.

It actually wasn't all that bad, but it made me think about stuff that I "have to" do. At this point in my life, I get more and more annoyed with the "have to's". Church meetings that should be 30 minutes but last 90; work conference calls that have to be weekly but should be monthly; school meetings that I have to attend or the teacher and principal will come to my house and kick me in the head. All of these and others should be things I ought to do, but not necessarily have to do.

Yesterday was "Earth Hour", a time when earth's residents were told they should turn off all household and business lights to save energy and show a worldwide unity of concern for the planet. I realize I "ought to" do better at saving energy by turning off lights and walking more. But everywhere I turn all I see and hear are advertisements telling me how evil I am if I don't do more. I need to be better at tracking how much I can save by being green, kind of like the United Nations. In a statement released before Earth Hour, the U.N. predicted they would save $81,000 by going dark at their complex for 60 minutes. A short time later, that amount decreased to $24,000. Finally, a more accurate prediction was released at a dollar amount of savings achieved by turning off all of the lights at the U.N. building - $102. If at first you can't be honest, make sure you are close on the third attempt.

As a family, we decided we "have to" provide a balance to all of this energy savings. We decided to turn on every light in our house, opened up every window, turned up the thermostat to 85 degrees, turned every appliance on that we could think of (dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, bread maker, oven, blender, mixer, coffee maker ), and turned on every water faucet for good measure. We then built a bonfire in the backyard and had both of our cars idling for the full hour. It felt so good to achieve complete family unity. We estimate that this hour cost us at least an additional $102 on our April power bill. I'm not going to predict more than that, I'm just not into exaggeration.

My point with this story is - right now we are told we "ought to" be doing, or not doing, stuff to help save the planet. Is it out of the realm of possibility these "ought to's" will turn into "have to's"? I hope not, but at this point I wouldn't put anything past the U.N. and some of our leaders. Isn't the dream of America all about keeping your thermostat at 80 degrees just because you can? Please don't take that away from me.