Rejecting Obligation: Natural Human Instinct?

If you "have to" clean your room, you automatically feel like you don't want to or you rather not.

If you "have to" do homework, you feel you really don't want to.

Or, if you "need to" get a job, you might feel you don't want to and make up excuses like "I'm not ready."

These "have to"s and "need to"s are obligation words like "must" or "should".

When we are told that we have to do something, do we not all instantly reject it?


We are controlled, so we rebel. We reject the things we have to do.

Even the youngest child, when told they have to do something they may say "no" or "I don't want to." Do parents teach their children to reject something? I don't think so. They may even learn this from babyhood that they can reject something they "have to" do.

So is this a natural human-instinct based reaction?

If so, why is it? Why do we feel we need to rebel against something we are told to do? Do you suppose even in our cave-people years, we rejected obligation? Or, could it be that we knew we needed to do things for survival, so even if we didn't want to do it, we didn't say so because we needed to survive.

But now, with many things available to us to help us survive, we need minimal effort (in the sense that we don't need to go out and hunt our food...or most of us don't, anyway). And so, we are able to reject obligation.

I guess that means rejecting obligation is like a privilege for some of us. We don't have to hunt for food, make clothes, or any tools for that matter because now we have machines.

I thought of an experiment that can show how this (perhaps) natural human instinct of rejecting obligation can be put into play.

Have a number of young children from ages 3 to 7 or so in individual rooms. Tell them they must do everything they are told to do. Have them do simple tasks. Then present them with a bowl of candy (or their favorite food). Tell them they have to eat it.

It would be interesting to see how they react to this. Would the children eat it or will they reject the idea of doing so?