Would You Give Up Your Air Conditioning?

One time, when I was still in high school, we used to use this educational tool called Values Clarification.

I used to love it because it was easy and don’t require a ton of work.

If you could sit still, be quiet and listen, you could get an A. The only specific lesson I remember has to do with comfort over goodness. The question to be addressed is something like, rank these in order of importance. 1. Comfort, 2. Kindness, 3. Helping people, 4. Convenience, 5. Making a lot of money. Almost everyone in the class chose kindness or helping people as the most important, thinking that was the “right” answer. I chose comfort, and everyone looked at me like I was the worst person on the planet. I was just being honest. Well, a few days later, the teacher turned off the a/c in the classroom and told everyone it was broken. Then she broke us up into small groups so we could help one another accomplish something. With no a/c, it was super hot in there. We did not have ceiling fans or even a box fan. We could not even open the windows. The a/c was the only cooling option. Before we knew it, all these people who chose kindness and being nice were downright mean. They were feeling miserable without the air conditioner blowing, and it was causing them to be short-tempered and angry. That is when we discussed the question again. Because I had chosen comfort as most important, it was determined that I was smarter than I looked. Would you give up your air conditioning to teach a lesson? Would you give your a/c to help someone?

New air conditioning

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *